I feel like the title of this article was a little misleading, it makes it sound like he's chiding the industry for relying on use of linux and open-source software to make them look good (android is linux-based? yay it must be the best!), which I would kind of agree with. He's actually saying that it's there as a fail-safe for the possibility of Microsoft and Apple walling off their ecosystems from tinkerers and developers (which I also agree with).