In case its not clear, Linux the operating system typically means the Linux kernel plus a set of unix-inspired GPL-licenced userspace tools. Some (still) call this GNU/Linux, although that is a bit of a mouthful.
Android has a completely different userspace to "Linux". The kernel is not the issue.
But if you want, you can totally install all the GNU userspace tools on Android. Nothing is stopping you from doing that.
Just semantics.
Marricks's comment simply does not make any sense if we're to use that definition of "Linux".
"No one is going to spend billions of dollars to get you to buy Linux.", Marrick said. Perhaps they were including the resources required to make something that is recognisably Linux that is compatible with phones, and polished enough to be appealing to the average consumer?
They could just have not known this, it's not obvious if you've never tried to open a terminal on an Android phone.
But how is Android not recognisably Linux? You can natively run all the Linux stuff you'd like on Android.
It consists of "massive" changes such as:
> Enable writable clock debugfs files which are required for debugging and testing
and
> Allow drivers to register hooks when IPIs are sent and handled. The statistics of these IPIs are helpful in predicting CPU idle states