> Broadcom can torpedo this if it starts impinging on their own business in some way. That's not the kind of power you want to hand to somebody when you are trying to promulgate something.

Not really - if broadcom torpedos it, tomorrow the raspi guys buy Mediatek or Allwinner chips instead or we switch to a different board maker. They don't go bust on the spot and almost everything software wise would remain the same even on a different board. Plenty of similar boards are already using these other chips, there's lots of competition in the ARM SoC space.