We totally can, but not yet. Postmarket is trying hard AF.

The whole Voice/SMS/VoLTE/DataLTE side of things is proprietary, so they're reverse engineering it, but it's painfully slow. Probably once they crack it open, the industry will try to protect it behind encryption and DRM.

I personally like Android

What we need is better AOSP

No, because the "surge" in market share is almost certainly driven not by the average user's love of open source software, but by the average user simply letting their laptop die as they switch to phones and tablets as their sole computing devices. Windows users aren't becoming Linux users. They are becoming Android users.

I think android would be a better base to build on. don't look at their messy kernel, but the userspace. rip out the brainded, user-hostile limitations that google added in recent years, or reimplement them better, and it's pretty good.

sure continue pmos development, and plasma mobile and other components, but don't just ditch out a system that has worked well for so many time and been developed by lots of people by a company who has poured in lots of money

The year of the Linux desktop isn't as interesting anymore. It all sort of works good enough for most people not to need to care now.

What we need is the year of the Linux phone. And it think that we will have to still wait a long time for it. And no, Google/Linux does not count.