AOSP derived ROMs without gapps are pretty much "nothing Google". Unless you count AOSP itself as "Google", which it kind of is I guess, but it's not Google proprietary.
Gapps (Google Apps) are just a bunch of closed-source and non-free applications. They are not a part of the operating system and they are not required for the operating system to work. Just like you can use Ubuntu without Ubuntu One, you can use Android without Google Apps. Unless you absolutely need a Google app like Gmail, it won't be an issue. Even then, you can use the browser (which is open source) to go to gmail.com etc.
As for the manufacturer ROMs, they are not Android. They are Android-based operating systems and they have their own names such as TouchWiz, Sense etc. This article is specifically talking about the Android operating system, which means it is referring to AOSP rather than, say, Touchwiz.
Ofcourse You can make Android device without google.
AOSP is open source and google can't prevent You from using it.
What google can prevent you from using though, it's all the 'feels like core android but actually is google proprietary' stuff. That's what the whole Huawei battle was about.
For most people, aosp without gapps is useless. Given an option, they will choose android over aosp every time. You don't use your phone for any popular apps so of course it's fine for you. I'd like to actually use my $1000 phone instead.
AOSP has effectively been dead for a long time. You need Google Play services for almost everything now and more and more creeps into the proprietary portion.
AOSP is certainly more open, but half the system and its apps are provided through gapps which are also black box binary blobs that you can't easily dissect.
You can roll your own Gapps quite easy (before flashing a custom ROM) if at some point Google starts going after anyone and everyone distributing it (which is what they would potentially target if they did). I've done it before when compiling the AOSP source and there's nothing out yet because it's a new AOSP version.
You'll get AOSP versions of the basics, though some things like the camera app might actually be made/modified by Lineage. I run LineageOS with no gapps and find it to be quite usable. I get most apps from F-Droid, but there's also Aurora Store (installable from F-Droid) if you need anything from the Play Store.
AOSP and its derivatives may be maintained by Google but they don't call home without the proprietary Google apps. Just leave those off and use something like F-Droid to get apps and you're Google-free. None of the Android devices I use (phones and tablets) has any Google-proprietary code installed, all of them work fine without such.
Unlockable bootloader, yes. Officially supported ROM without Google Play Services, absolutely not.
I see you defending Google around here. That's fine but a grand-grand-grand...-parent of yours was saying that AOSP is unusable, and that point still stands and is true.
AOSP is completely different than pure Android. What you call AOSP is basically android without (other) vendor crap, but real AOSP is also without all of googles proprietery stuff (like google play, push notifications and so on).
So AOSP is basically pure android without googles crap.
Android itself can be installed without the Google suite otherwise known as GApps. Actually most roms don't include GApps for this reason. Look at any AOSP based rom. Its just they want access to the Google suite and this requires OHA http://www.openhandsetalliance.com/ requirements.
The blog post is by the open source office in Google, not specifically the android team
And so far entirely about AOSP and getting that running.
GApps (the non-free part) isn't mentioned at all.
And like someone else said, there's use cases besides phones that use android. And some people Run de-googled android on phones, it's just degraded :/
AOSP is fairly basic and somewhat limited on its own, unless you have the resources to replace all of the "gapps", including setting up your own app store. Google Play Services has been slowly taking over a lot of core (and not-so-core) phone functionality over the past year or more, and it's entirely closed source.
Google even stopped open-sourcing new versions of Google Authenticator, which you'd think would be a prime candidate for a full-blown open source project. (And hell, it's a crappy app; there are better GAuth-workalikes available.)
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