Originally Posted by
HowardL168 I'm not so sure about that. Moto Z Force is updated only thru the December security patch, even though January, February (and now, according to the previous post March) patches are available. My belief is, since the Moto Z Oreo "build", that was originally soaked in Brazil, was based on a foundation with the December security patch, they want that build to be the version distributed OTA and "then" apply new security patches.
No. The security patches has nothing to do with OS versions. The Galaxy S5 and Note 4 for example received some 2017 security patches. And neither have been updated to Nougat.
The Galaxy S7 is receiving Oreo as well (some Vietnam handsets already got it by mistake where the beta got public release for a short time) but is still receiving patches. The Feb security patch has just started rolling out in some countries.
However the problem is that in the US, carriers modify the firmware to an extent that is unorthodox to other countries. For example, hotspot tethering is a built in function, but US carriers modify the firmware to block that. So your argument may be possible, but only applicable to US carriers. And another problem is that in the US, even factory unlocked device updates are pushed from the carrier servers.