[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] KWKSLVR:
Fair enough.

I suppose none of us can answer that. All we can do is speculate, and speculation, while fun, can be a dangerous thing. That said, here's another speculation coming from someone that does not understand all of the technical aspects of telephony support and what all is in those props, so this is probably invalid. I'm a user, tester, Android lover. BUT, if Verizon/Sprint as carriers (or CDMA as a technology) is unable or unwilling to provide telephony support that meets a required standard for inclusion into the AOSP, then why should Google let it hang around as being listed as AOSP? It would only make Google look bad for appearing to be attempting to support something that they cannot, whether it's due to technological or licensing incompatibilities/issues. To come out an essentially say, "Well, Verizon is screwing over this device and us" Or, "CDMA is crappy" in a very nice way puts Verizon and Sprint in a bad light. One thing Google doesn't want to do is alienate one of the nation's largest carriers that has eleventy billion Android devices.

Again, speculation. But look at the devices that were pulled off the list. They all share the component of being CDMA. To me, that says:

1) Maybe there is a shortcoming in the technology that excludes inclusion into AOSP

2) Maybe Verizon and Sprint are buttholes

3) Maybe there is some weird hangup in how CDMA is regulated (from a legal standpoint) that prevents this stuff from being handed out like its GSM candy

I don't know. Again, that is based on NOTHING. I just think that as a community it's important to have all of the facts and to try and look at things from several different sides, Google's, Samsung's, Verizon's, Sprint's, CDMA's, FCC's (? Maybe, I don't know). I just refuse to believe that Google would blatantly lie for the explicit purpose of attempting to mislead the development community. Now, they may be told to lie for legal reasons, but that's not in Google's nature.

I'm probably completely off base, but like most things, it can't be explained in a single paragraph from Dan Morril or anyone else.

Here's my view point with most all things Android. For over a year, I watched, and still watch people blame Samsung for not slapping a blinged out TouchWiz version of Gingerbread on the T-Mobile Vibrant. That was not Samsung's fault. It was T-Mobile's fault for doing what they're notorious for, which is to not update devices. There's a reason why the service is cheap. They have to save money somewhere. For almost two years I've watched people say that Samsung is slow to update based on the Vibrant's update schedule, despite a large number of Samsung's Android offerings getting updates before other manufacturers roll theirs out. My point, passionate people often spread what they think is true, as fact, without disclaimers and everyone runs with it. Not everything in a blog is true. Most things on XDA are not true. Good intentions pave the road to misinformation and disaster.

You're totally right. Google's initial statement definitely seems weird. Like I said, I'm not a developer, but I have a basic understanding of most things. This just doesn't need to get out of hand in regards to the reason why most end users want a Google device, which is updates from Google and a pure Android experience. Changing documentation doesn't change those two things. Now for developers, yeah, you guys should want a more lengthy, less convoluted explanation.