This is very important to me (not just about privacy but much more about freedom), important enough that I switched to another ROM after finding out that you did not release your software under the terms of a free/libre software license. I do get your point, though. I opened an issue about this on GitHub which also includes some suggestions on how to make money with free software. It certainly is not as easy as making money with non-free software, but there are some examples (Nextcloud, etc.). In order to have some time to get larger you could put your changes under a copyleft license. (I do not recall any large AOSP-based ROM using one.) Using a copyleft license like the GPLv3-or-later (an upgrade path is important) would actually be an improvement as it would require ROMs including parts of your source code to release theirs as well. This guarantees that you can always use their code based on yours as well.
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