NVIDIA drivers

So if I understand correctly the situation with the NVIDIA driver is the following:

• Nvidia regularly releases proprietary drivers (kernel module + userspace) for linux. They work, but often lag behind in term of features and bugfixes.
• Nvidia also released an open source kernel module (actively maintained?), that can be used as alternative to the closed one. Beta state and no clear intention to get it into the official kernel tree.
• The open kernel module allows nouveau and NVK to build a fully open driver that in a future could be competitive with the one from NVIDIA.

I'm not sure where nvidia is heading there. Are they hoping that NVK reaches a good level maturity and then support that directly (like AMD used to have both closed and open driver but then ditched the former?). Is the open kernel driver just another very indirect helping hand to nouveau to get the basics working on linux so you can open a browser and install the proprietary driver?