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Linux is open source. Support doesn't have to come from kernel.org. Linaro are supporting 3.18 until December 2018. There may be other vendors committing to maintaining the kernel with at least security fixes for longer.
 

From the release announcement:

* Port to ARM AArch64 contributed by Linaro.

From that organization's website:

"it wants to provide the best software foundations to everyone, and to reduce non-differentiating and costly low level fragmentation."

"Linaro was established in June 2010 by founding members ARM, Freescale, IBM, Samsung, ST-Ericsson and Texas instruments (TI). Members provide engineering resources and funding. Linaro's goals are to deliver value to its members through enabling their engineering teams to focus on differentiation and product delivery, and to reduce time to market for OEM/ODMs delivering open source based products using ARM technology."

(member list quite a bit longer than above names)

In other words: many commercial enterprises, that are in it for the money and fighting each other in the marketplace, but working together to improve something that's out there in the open, free for all to use. So that what's common to all, is the best it can be, and each vendor can focus its resources on what makes their product different from the rest of the pack.

Sigh - how much better life could be if that principle were applied more often...

After digging through the TFA I found Linaro Android Puts Stock Android To Shame on TI Pandaboard (OMAP4430). Which after digging in the comments leads to www.linaro.org/
 
But the meat of the whole report is contained in this comment from Bernhard Rosenkraenzer which contains some better stats and also links to the toolchains and source code.
 
After this much manual digging I've realized that I'm getting to jaded for /.

An Arm board with two SATA ports running OpenFiler would be a "proper NAS".
One of the strengths of FOSS is the ability to create systems using off the shelf hardware and FOSS software.
USB is not going to fast enough or reliable enough for anything but a home NAS.
You can get as I said two ARM boards that I know of with SATA ports. http://www.linaro.org/linaro-blog/2011/03/01/new-low-cost-cortex-a8-board-from-freescale/ and http://www.hawkboard.org/
Both lack GigaE and more than one SATA port.
Now this is an option http://www.embeddedarm.com/products/arm-sbc.php.

No they don't. We have enabled builds but we also have "open only builds": https://android-build.linaro.org/builds/~linaro-android/panda-ics-gcc46-kwg-upstream-open/ [linaro.org] That is a 100% open Panda Android build based on the upstream Linux kernel. No proprietary libs at all. Or this one: https://android-build.linaro.org/builds/~linaro-android/imx6-ics-gcc47-freescalelt-stable-open/ [linaro.org] That's a 100% open iMX6 build against GCC 4.7 that has no proprietary components. So not only is it possible, its being done.

No they don't. We have enabled builds but we also have "open only builds": https://android-build.linaro.org/builds/~linaro-android/panda-ics-gcc46-kwg-upstream-open/ [linaro.org] That is a 100% open Panda Android build based on the upstream Linux kernel. No proprietary libs at all. Or this one: https://android-build.linaro.org/builds/~linaro-android/imx6-ics-gcc47-freescalelt-stable-open/ [linaro.org] That's a 100% open iMX6 build against GCC 4.7 that has no proprietary components. So not only is it possible, its being done.

We already have it at Linaro: Look at this build from Linaro: https://android-build.linaro.org/builds/~linaro-android/panda-ics-gcc46-kwg-upstream-open/ That is a 100% open Panda Android build based on the upstream Linux kernel. No proprietary libs at all. Or this one: https://android-build.linaro.org/builds/~linaro-android/imx6-ics-gcc47-freescalelt-stable-open/ That's a 100% open iMX6 build against GCC 4.7 that has no proprietary components. So not only is it possible, its being done.

We already have it at Linaro: Look at this build from Linaro: https://android-build.linaro.org/builds/~linaro-android/panda-ics-gcc46-kwg-upstream-open/ That is a 100% open Panda Android build based on the upstream Linux kernel. No proprietary libs at all. Or this one: https://android-build.linaro.org/builds/~linaro-android/imx6-ics-gcc47-freescalelt-stable-open/ That's a 100% open iMX6 build against GCC 4.7 that has no proprietary components. So not only is it possible, its being done.

This is really awesome. People are welcome to take a look Linaro's Android builds, which are aimed at the development boards that most of the SoC manufactures are creating. The builds are easy to try. Insert an SD card into your computer, run one command and bingo! There even easy to build from source. See http://www.linaro.org/engineering/getting-started/low-cost-development-boards for the complete list of boards.

We've got:

AOSP clone (Panda):
AOSP with 4.6 (Panda)
Snowball
iMX6
iMX53
Origen

This is really awesome. People are welcome to take a look Linaro's Android builds, which are aimed at the development boards that most of the SoC manufactures are creating. The builds are easy to try. Insert an SD card into your computer, run one command and bingo! There even easy to build from source. See http://www.linaro.org/engineering/getting-started/low-cost-development-boards for the complete list of boards.

We've got:

AOSP clone (Panda):
AOSP with 4.6 (Panda)
Snowball
iMX6
iMX53
Origen

This is really awesome. People are welcome to take a look Linaro's Android builds, which are aimed at the development boards that most of the SoC manufactures are creating. The builds are easy to try. Insert an SD card into your computer, run one command and bingo! There even easy to build from source. See http://www.linaro.org/engineering/getting-started/low-cost-development-boards for the complete list of boards.

We've got:

AOSP clone (Panda):
AOSP with 4.6 (Panda)
Snowball
iMX6
iMX53
Origen

This is really awesome. People are welcome to take a look Linaro's Android builds, which are aimed at the development boards that most of the SoC manufactures are creating. The builds are easy to try. Insert an SD card into your computer, run one command and bingo! There even easy to build from source. See http://www.linaro.org/engineering/getting-started/low-cost-development-boards for the complete list of boards.

We've got:

AOSP clone (Panda):
AOSP with 4.6 (Panda)
Snowball
iMX6
iMX53
Origen

This is really awesome. People are welcome to take a look Linaro's Android builds, which are aimed at the development boards that most of the SoC manufactures are creating. The builds are easy to try. Insert an SD card into your computer, run one command and bingo! There even easy to build from source. See http://www.linaro.org/engineering/getting-started/low-cost-development-boards for the complete list of boards.

We've got:

AOSP clone (Panda):
AOSP with 4.6 (Panda)
Snowball
iMX6
iMX53
Origen

This is really awesome. People are welcome to take a look Linaro's Android builds, which are aimed at the development boards that most of the SoC manufactures are creating. The builds are easy to try. Insert an SD card into your computer, run one command and bingo! There even easy to build from source. See http://www.linaro.org/engineering/getting-started/low-cost-development-boards for the complete list of boards.

We've got:

AOSP clone (Panda):
AOSP with 4.6 (Panda)
Snowball
iMX6
iMX53
Origen

This is really awesome. People are welcome to take a look Linaro's Android builds, which are aimed at the development boards that most of the SoC manufactures are creating. The builds are easy to try. Insert an SD card into your computer, run one command and bingo! There even easy to build from source. See http://www.linaro.org/engineering/getting-started/low-cost-development-boards for the complete list of boards.

We've got:

AOSP clone (Panda):
AOSP with 4.6 (Panda)
Snowball
iMX6
iMX53
Origen

Yup, ZP for Zach Pfeffer. Linaro Android Platform lead. :) Checkout our work at: https://launchpad.net/linaro-android/+milestone/11.09 https://launchpad.net/linaro-android/+milestone/11.10 https://launchpad.net/linaro-android/+milestone/11.11 ...and our team at: https://wiki.linaro.org/MeetTheTeam and https://wiki.linaro.org/Platform/Android feel free to talk to us on freenode in the #linaro-android channel!

Yup, ZP for Zach Pfeffer. Linaro Android Platform lead. :) Checkout our work at: https://launchpad.net/linaro-android/+milestone/11.09 https://launchpad.net/linaro-android/+milestone/11.10 https://launchpad.net/linaro-android/+milestone/11.11 ...and our team at: https://wiki.linaro.org/MeetTheTeam and https://wiki.linaro.org/Platform/Android feel free to talk to us on freenode in the #linaro-android channel!

By using a series of topic branches including an "Android" tracking branch that contains just those patches needed for core functionality Linaro is able to rebase on most kernel versions, 3.1, 3.2..etc. We keep a Linus HEAD and a last -rc version around, calling Linus HEAD "tracking" builds and -rc "staging" builds. We also have all of the enablement for each board split out into topic branches. These can then get octopus merged or stgit'd into a single tree. For Pandaboard this git has all of this broken out: http://git.linaro.org/gitweb?p=people/andygreen/kernel-tilt.git;a=summary.

I'm not quite sure what you mean when you say "None of what Intel did to Linux with Moblin has any repercussions for anyone not using an x86-compatible Intel processor." For now I will interpret that as "they did nothing of interest for machines with CPUs from AMD/ARM etc.

Arjan van de van's work on asynchronous initialization of kernel subsystems means you will spend less time waiting for the kernel to finishon all sorts of CPUs - not just x86s. Powertop works on CPUs other than Intel's and has been used to help monitor power consumption of various program running on Linux.

Surely the fact that much of this work has gone upstream/mainline is a positive thing rather than a negative one? It's hard to tell which way you view this from your comment...

Thus far ARM has not focused on system specifications other than basic binary code interface. The Linaro group http://www.linaro.org/about-linaro/ has now started developing a more system level approach and a concerted effort to get more consistency with upstream engineering. The situation has been a bit confused until now, but it will get a lot better with the Cortex-A9 and A15 systems for Android, Linux, and Microsoft.

http://www.linaro.org/low-cost-development-boards

You might read the Linaro FAQ:

Q11. What license will you use?

A11. The licensing used will be in line with the existing licensing plan for the open source projects. If we were to create a new project, we would choose an appropriate OSI approved license.

Q12. Are Linaro software and tools free and available to anyone?

A12: Yes. Tools and software are available now as monthly releases to make it easy to get the latest code and tools.

Q13. Does Linaro make money?

A13. No. Linaro is a not for profit organization doing useful open source engineering work for the good of the industry.

Essentially it's a club of about 100 engineers from various sources with the mission to accelerate development and use of Linux on ARM. Naturally they would partner with various hardare and distro partners to get various flavors of Linux on various flavors of ARM, and encourage wide distribution of all of this. These groups typically use a "Cambrian Explosion" approach to innovation and selection, so you shouldn't marry any platform they produce, but rather be flexible about exploiting the potentials presented. It's for learning. That geeks will send this thing to the upper levels of the atmosphere and perhaps to space; to the deepest levels of our oceans, fly UAVs, and program robots in elementary schools is incidental to the main thrust. Those folks buy units in the hundreds: they're not the target market - but it's still cool that this stuff is available to do that.

While dev boards are normally available for just about everything, you have to be a ninth level nerd to navigate all the various vendor agreements, partnerships and docs in a way that doesn't lead to a halt in open source progress with development NDA's, unsupported hardware or other roadblocks. Sometimes you have to be working for a Fortune 500 company to get the DevKit. These guys are doing away with all that, and that's a good thing. It's important that they're doing it not for money, but because they crave progress. Whether their craving is personal or institutional is irrelevant because we all benefit from progress. This is a good way to isolate progress drivers such that they can work and not harm their sponsors.

Until they make a public announcement to the contrary we have no reason to believe otherwise.

Depends on what you understand by hardware support... to me, it sounds very much like drivers

The 11.05 cycle will add hardware support for Samsung and Freescale in addition to the existing OMAP, ARM Versatile Express Platform and U8500 based boards.

and

Linaro is also working with its member chip companies to maximize upstream SoC support, i.e. to move most of the SoC specific drivers into the official sources on http://kernel.org/ .

Sounds like a public enough declaration of support for open-source drivers?

This would be worth so much more if the board's chipsets supported freely licensed drivers.

It seems that Linaro full support for Origen (see close to the end of the PDF) will be available in Q3/2011.

This would be worth so much more if the board's chipsets supported freely licensed drivers.

It seems that Linaro full support for Origen (see close to the end of the PDF) will be available in Q3/2011.

I guess that is what http://www.linaro.org/ is trying to organize.

*puts on anti-Nokia troll hat*

I don't know about hats, but it sure sounds like you're trolling!

What's stopping Google from using code in the MeeGo base?

MeeGo uses a (somewhat) stock kernel, I believe. Android puts in all kinds of special sauce not in mainline like wake-locks.

Drivers written for Android aren't necessarily going to just work in MeeGo, unless you add all that additional stuff (cruft?) to the kernel, etc...

Like most popular distros, MeeGo uses the standard GNU userland; Android uses their own, non-GPL userland.

we'll probably see a lot of cross contamination between Android and MeeGo kernel code.

Sure, anything that's from upstream.

(I suspect that since Android's source is completely open, there would be no...

Android, like MeeGo is largely open. But there are certain things that are not released under a FOSS license (e.g. some drivers, particularly power-related and graphics-related drivers).

On Android, I believe that all of Google's core applications are completely closed-source. What's more, it's non-trivial to set up the phone to sync with non-Google servers.

Nokia would steal Google's UI code and Dalvik

I don't think that Android's UI is particularly better or worse than MeeGo's.

And Dalvik? That's like asking the MeeGo folks to go stick their hand in a beehive filled with thousands of tiny little Larry Ellisons with stingers. Surely, you must be joking!

Google would steal their best threading, i/o, and whatever other code is probably superior in MeeGo that isn't probably going to wind up in the base kernel trunk

Part of the whole point with MeeGo is to try to get as much stuff pushed up into upstream projects as is possible. If there's some good threading or i/o improvements to be made to the kernel, it seems reasonable that the MeeGo kernel devs will work hard to get it into mainline. From my perspective, Android has an "after the fact" attitude towards kernel development, whereas MeeGo has more of a "let's cooperate with upstream" attitude.

I don't know if ARM is working directly on the Linux kernel/Android or not

Sure. One of the projects they sponsor is Linaro. Linaro is a projects tasked with making it easier to deploy Linux-based systems on top of ARM: http://www.linaro.org/

After having read the FAQ on the Linaro web site and a blog entry by Mark Shuttleworth, I get the feeling that this is an initiative coming from Canonical. If they will be driving this forward, with support from the hardware vendors of course, it might not become your garden variety standards organisation. In that case, the key issue will be to keep the commitment from the hardware manufacturers. But I guess it could work out alright considering Canonical isn't a direct competitor to any of them.