Sure it is, but I can see why OP looks down on it – just like their web rendering engine, it may be open source, but it's Google holding all the cards and ultimately making all the decisions. It may be opensource now while it's useful for them, but it may end up just like Android over the years: more and more closed bit by bit.

Is Google any worse than some "benevolent dictator for life" like other open-source languages?

Yes. They drop projects all the time, have numerous conflicts of interest, and it's close to impossible to talk with them

Except they don't drop many more projects all the time, Funny that people here argues it should drop Dart. I am glad they are sticking to it.

Google has abandoned so many projects people (developers) don’t have that much of a faith in them anymore.

A lot of open sources are abandoned in general. Google has a good track record regarding the maintenance of their open source projects. Google has abandoned some proprietary products (Google Reader, Google +, etc.), but it says nothing about their open source strategy.

For a public view it doesn’t really matter if it is proprietary project or not. They have tarnished their own reputation even at the development field with their actions.

Sure Google is worse. A BDFL usually started it as a personal project, has deep interest in making the software flourish in the most places possible. Google interest is their bottom line, and it will base their technical decisions.

Benevolent dictators eventually die, or retire while corporate entities can exist for a very long time[1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kong%C5%8D_Gumi

In the sense that the thing worse than "benevolent dictator for life" is "non-benevolent dictator for life".

Have people stopped developing Android apps?

The litmus test is "will it survive if Google pulls the plug on it?", and I suspect the answer is "No".

But this is true of so many widely used open source projects.

Sure, technically. The same way Chromium is technically open source. Funny how everything in the web browser world ends up how Google wants it regardless.

What's stopping you from forking and making changes you want?

Literally nothing

Nothing. The issue is that your changes don’t actually do much when the web moves on without them.

until they come up with Angular-esque Dart 2.0 that is not backwards compatible and you're left maintaining their mess.

Forks are nice for small patches or development teams with a plan, no one outside Google cares enough about Dart fwik.

This is HN. Everything Google does is evil. Don't forget that.