I'm the author. And I do know what I'm talking about. OHA doesn't even begin to solve the problem at hand. The subjects of my piece have access to AOSP, and could join OHA if they wanted to, but the fact is that those are not enough to support their products. These OEMs sell into incredibly competitive environments, and many of their customers want the full Google Experience and G-Suite. They'd be willing to pay something for it. My argument is just that it is in Google's best interests to become more engaged with this community. Nothing to do with how I feel about AOSP.
So I wrote the original post, and I'm always a bit afraid to wade into the comments, but I wanted to respond to this one.
Your point is that Google is prioritizing correctly. That they are just going after the big OEMs first and then the guys I'm talking about are too small to bother with. About right?
I didn't hammer the point in this post, because I've made it a few other places, but all of these OEMs collectively are bigger than any other single OEM. Collectively, this group produces between one half and two thirds of the world's phones. Most are very small, but many are now huge. Google seems to be focussing on just one or two. I think with a small amount of effort they could tap into the whole audience. It wouldn't require building a huge support structure. And the numbers are huge.