7 ms·

CyanogenMod Inc. Reorganizes, Severs Ties with Project Founder

116 points by yareally 10y ago

this-dang-guy 10y ago
Wow, bummer. I wondered what happened to Cyanogen, I was looking forward to their stuff.
TwoNineA 10y ago
I guess they weren't able to put the bullet into Google's head.
- ocdtrekkie 10y ago
  Pretty impossible goal while using Google's software as your business platform. You can't beat Google at Google's own operating system.
  - dispose13432 10y ago
    It wasn't about Google, it was about the way they did business that was so bad that no one could rely on them.
wyldfire 10y ago
> 2. The main IP is the brand and trademarks. I don't know if I can get it back without a fight, and I'm tired of fighting. We will likely need to fork and rebrand, which might not be a bad thing. Would you support it? Yes, if CM offers something "less libre" and son-of-CM continues the legacy of CM with AOSP. Other high-profile projects like this have survived rebranding/forks. It's not clear to me all the stuff this long saga includes but I get some bits and pieces from the comments. I am not terribly concerned about whatever business missteps took place at CM Inc.
- hbosch 10y ago
  Agree. CM went down a very strange path, in my personal opinion, and kind of left it's community stranded in the pursuit of monetization. Regardless on your feelings of the split between them (and I do not intend on derailing this thread) io.js forked from Node and had modest success on their own, before folding back into Node. I suspect CM Classic could have a same amount of success, since the Android ROM community values product quality and integrity much more over brand name.
- dispose13432 10y ago
  Omni tried forking and didn't get too far.
samfisher83 10y ago
Steve Kondik Comments: Boo hoo, right? I fucked up and got fucked over. It's the Silicon Valley way isn't it? First world problems in the extreme? It hurts, a lot. I lost a lot of friends, and I'm truely sorry to everyone I let down. I wish I had made different choices and trusted different people (especially one in particular early on), but all I care about now is figuring out what to do next. This guy pretty much made that rom initially kind of sad what happened to him.
- tw04 10y ago
  >kind of sad what happened to him. Not really. When he decided to go commercial, he burned a LOT of people. He basically got what was coming to him.
  - samfisher83 10y ago
    Is it wrong he wanted to make a little of all the hard work he put into it? He hired a bunch of the community folks that helped with development.
    - baobrain 10y ago
      May I direct you to this [0] G+ post from the dev who made focal? What Kondik did was not just "make a little of all the hard work he put into it." He also blames the cofounder for everything that went wrong. Not his own incompetence or community pushback, just the cofounder. [0]https://plus.google.com/+GuillaumeLesniak/posts/L8FJkrcahPs https://plus.google.com/+GuillaumeLesniak/posts/L8FJkrcahPs
      - vuanotinn 10y ago
        Proof the GPL is cancer.
        Spivak 10y ago
        This post seems to indicate that the GPL is working exactly as intended.
vuanotinn 10y ago
Looks like all Android-related projects, big or small, high profile or low profile, suffer from the same problem the iOS jailbreak community has: everybody with power or a voice in the community is either a whiny bitch or a brat. Technical/legal stuff aside, all problems with projects related to the Android OS are all the same: immaturity, lack of responsibility, selfishness, etc.
- _csoo 10y ago
  feels like the old warez dayz
- nas 10y ago
  The Android open source community is deeply unhealthy, IMHO. Compare the pile of shit that is XDA vs a well run open source project. Most of the stuff posted there has no way to verify the source code, binaries download from sketchy sites, no issue tracker. If you have the stomach to wade through the cesspool of XDA threads, you will find the majorly of posters parroting cargo cult ideas (e.g. wiping battery stats to improve battery life). This is not the way to advance technology. Personally, I think Google is a lot to blame. They really don't care if Android is an open source platform and they don't foster an open source community building on it. So we have basically a mod scene that hacks binaries and passes around dirty hacks that break on every new release. I don't think the work done by the modders end up going back into the official source repo. So much waste of developer time for no long-term progress.
  - NoGravitas 10y ago
    The biggest problem I see is (and there may be other biggies, but this is the one that has bitten me), is that device support in Android kernels never gets upstreamed to Linux. Not necessarily due to GPL violations, but because even though the device source tree is published, there's no one willing to shepherd the changes upstream (and many vendor changes are low quality, so it would be a lot of work). Typically even a Nexus device is stuck on the specific kernel version that it was released with. Google is a little better on the kernel side, but in other ways, AOSP is even worse. There's lots of good stuff done in Cyanogen and OmniROM, for example, but there's no way to get stuff into upstream AOSP. Google just pitches something over the wall once a year and ROM developers have to rebase or re-implement their ROM features.
shepardrtc 10y ago
Internally, Cyanogen has been a shitshow for the past few years. They had management that kept screwing up, and they treated their people pretty poorly. All the good employees saw the writing on the wall and have already left.
fredgrott 10y ago
You know he might have an option..partner with MS to bring an Android OS fork that has MS Services..and we would get patent coverage to boot as enticement to OEMs..
- sangnoir 10y ago
  No need to rehash Cynogen Inc's strategy - they already partnered with Microsoft and bundle Office, MS Camera and default to Bing. Which was well-received by the community known for flashing new ROMs onto their phones /s. And don't get me started about the OEM amateur hour: they inked a deal with OnePlus and shipped as the out-of-the-box OS for the OPO. A lot of people in India bought the phone - win-win-win, right? Then the strategic geniuses signed another agreement with an Indian phone manufacturer with an exclusivity clause that prevented further OTA updates to the OPO phones already in user's hands on the subcontinent. Never mind dissing their upstream ("Cyanogen is putting a bullet to Google's head" - Cyanogen Inc CEO)
rer0tsaz 10y ago
>5. WWJBQD? This refers to Jean-Baptiste ‘JBQ’ Quéru, who responded: put users first. https://plus.google.com/+JeanBaptisteQueru/posts/jjwjobbMUY8 https://plus.google.com/+JeanBaptisteQueru/posts/jjwjobbMUY8
cr0sh 10y ago
Here I was all this time (several years) thinking CyanogenMod was a product by (Android) hackers for (Android) hackers. Now, I find out it's a product by a company...? WTF? I've never used it (and the following is just me talking from my nether regions), but I've always kept it "in my back pocket" as something someday to try out. Why? Because in my mind, it was "non-corporate" - made for the love of the platform, not for money. Maybe that's the problem. Maybe where things went wrong was when they tried to monetize stuff. Stop doing that - everything isn't about money. Or at least, it shouldn't be. More often than not, especially in projects like these, money can corrupt and screw up the whole project. So fork it. Get back to the community, back to the roots. Quit trying to become "the rich guy" - and go back to being "the hacker dude bring cool 5h!7 to the community". Don't even think about the money. If its really worth something, the money will magically appear. Even if it doesn't, what does it matter? It's about the love of the platform, right? RIGHT? So fork it. The community will follow, and not look back at what once was, but will look forward to what can be.
- ozten 10y ago
  It is both a company (https://cyngn.com/ https://cyngn.com/) and a open source community (https://www.cyanogenmod.org/ https://www.cyanogenmod.org/).
  - cr0sh 10y ago
    I guess I just never knew about the "company" part. I should probably review the history of the project, how it started, whether it started "corporate" with an open-source community (nothing wrong with that), or if it was originally a community effort started by somebody(s) then morphed into a company too...? I'm not expecting an answer from you or anyone - it's my responsibility to do the research of course.
- pachydermic 10y ago
  It was a non-commercial open source project at first. Then they decided to go found a company and get hardware partners to have CyanogenMod phones. The time to try it was like 3-4 years ago!
- 10y ago
fghjllpours 10y ago
Is this the end of custom ROMs? Between Xposed and a "better" standard android, a lot of the "big" custom ROMs have bit the dust. Aokp, paranoid, slim, omni is moribund, and now CM?
- pachydermic 10y ago
  The only feature from CM that I miss is the ability to hold the volume up button to skip to the next track (as a global option, not just a per-app thing). Everything else that they did so well has pretty much been added to stock android.
  - fghjllpours 10y ago
    And the fact that they support old phones, and their privacy guard is better than stock android
- amiga-workbench 10y ago
  I don't bother with custom roms as much as I used to, I'm happy enough with root to nuke bloatware and get a systemwide ad-blocker installed. OEM's are finally gaining a little bit of taste in the UI department and I'm not revolted with their products out of the box as much as I used to be.
kilroy123 10y ago
That's a bummer they couldn't make things work. I used CyanogenMod before they turned into a company on some older Andriod phones. The community did make a great ROM and I was hoping they would shake things up. Hopefully, force manufacturers from releasing such bloated horrible custom versions of Android.
betterOffDead 10y ago
CyanogenMod's logo/mascot/whatever is beyond retarded looking. Some stupid, almost-impish little Napster-type cartoon character? It's non-facial expression is, somehow, even more annoying in its tepid inoffensiveness, than if it were to emote as some puckish, edgy dork. I spent hours unlocking some bootloader on my $600 phone so that I could look like a Linkin Park fan, who's into Saturday morning cartoons? I don't remember CyanogenMod looking quite so cheesey in 2011. ClockworkMod's logo was an example of faux 1337 w4r3zd00d chic done well. CyanogenMod looks like ass, and I won't be caught dead with it.
mohanmcgeek 10y ago
*Cyanogen Inc.

116 points by yareally 10y ago

this-dang-guy 10y ago

Wow, bummer. I wondered what happened to Cyanogen, I was looking forward to their stuff.

TwoNineA 10y ago

I guess they weren't able to put the bullet into Google's head.

ocdtrekkie 10y ago
Pretty impossible goal while using Google's software as your business platform. You can't beat Google at Google's own operating system.
- dispose13432 10y ago
  It wasn't about Google, it was about the way they did business that was so bad that no one could rely on them.

wyldfire 10y ago

> 2. The main IP is the brand and trademarks. I don't know if I can get it back without a fight, and I'm tired of fighting. We will likely need to fork and rebrand, which might not be a bad thing. Would you support it? Yes, if CM offers something "less libre" and son-of-CM continues the legacy of CM with AOSP. Other high-profile projects like this have survived rebranding/forks. It's not clear to me all the stuff this long saga includes but I get some bits and pieces from the comments. I am not terribly concerned about whatever business missteps took place at CM Inc.

hbosch 10y ago
Agree. CM went down a very strange path, in my personal opinion, and kind of left it's community stranded in the pursuit of monetization. Regardless on your feelings of the split between them (and I do not intend on derailing this thread) io.js forked from Node and had modest success on their own, before folding back into Node. I suspect CM Classic could have a same amount of success, since the Android ROM community values product quality and integrity much more over brand name.
dispose13432 10y ago
Omni tried forking and didn't get too far.

samfisher83 10y ago

Steve Kondik Comments: Boo hoo, right? I fucked up and got fucked over. It's the Silicon Valley way isn't it? First world problems in the extreme? It hurts, a lot. I lost a lot of friends, and I'm truely sorry to everyone I let down. I wish I had made different choices and trusted different people (especially one in particular early on), but all I care about now is figuring out what to do next. This guy pretty much made that rom initially kind of sad what happened to him.

tw04 10y ago
>kind of sad what happened to him. Not really. When he decided to go commercial, he burned a LOT of people. He basically got what was coming to him.
- samfisher83 10y ago
  Is it wrong he wanted to make a little of all the hard work he put into it? He hired a bunch of the community folks that helped with development.
  - baobrain 10y ago
    May I direct you to this [0] G+ post from the dev who made focal? What Kondik did was not just "make a little of all the hard work he put into it." He also blames the cofounder for everything that went wrong. Not his own incompetence or community pushback, just the cofounder. [0]https://plus.google.com/+GuillaumeLesniak/posts/L8FJkrcahPs https://plus.google.com/+GuillaumeLesniak/posts/L8FJkrcahPs
    - vuanotinn 10y ago
      Proof the GPL is cancer.
      - Spivak 10y ago
        This post seems to indicate that the GPL is working exactly as intended.

vuanotinn 10y ago

Looks like all Android-related projects, big or small, high profile or low profile, suffer from the same problem the iOS jailbreak community has: everybody with power or a voice in the community is either a whiny bitch or a brat. Technical/legal stuff aside, all problems with projects related to the Android OS are all the same: immaturity, lack of responsibility, selfishness, etc.

_csoo 10y ago
feels like the old warez dayz
nas 10y ago
The Android open source community is deeply unhealthy, IMHO. Compare the pile of shit that is XDA vs a well run open source project. Most of the stuff posted there has no way to verify the source code, binaries download from sketchy sites, no issue tracker. If you have the stomach to wade through the cesspool of XDA threads, you will find the majorly of posters parroting cargo cult ideas (e.g. wiping battery stats to improve battery life). This is not the way to advance technology. Personally, I think Google is a lot to blame. They really don't care if Android is an open source platform and they don't foster an open source community building on it. So we have basically a mod scene that hacks binaries and passes around dirty hacks that break on every new release. I don't think the work done by the modders end up going back into the official source repo. So much waste of developer time for no long-term progress.
- NoGravitas 10y ago
  The biggest problem I see is (and there may be other biggies, but this is the one that has bitten me), is that device support in Android kernels never gets upstreamed to Linux. Not necessarily due to GPL violations, but because even though the device source tree is published, there's no one willing to shepherd the changes upstream (and many vendor changes are low quality, so it would be a lot of work). Typically even a Nexus device is stuck on the specific kernel version that it was released with. Google is a little better on the kernel side, but in other ways, AOSP is even worse. There's lots of good stuff done in Cyanogen and OmniROM, for example, but there's no way to get stuff into upstream AOSP. Google just pitches something over the wall once a year and ROM developers have to rebase or re-implement their ROM features.

shepardrtc 10y ago

Internally, Cyanogen has been a shitshow for the past few years. They had management that kept screwing up, and they treated their people pretty poorly. All the good employees saw the writing on the wall and have already left.

fredgrott 10y ago

You know he might have an option..partner with MS to bring an Android OS fork that has MS Services..and we would get patent coverage to boot as enticement to OEMs..

sangnoir 10y ago
No need to rehash Cynogen Inc's strategy - they already partnered with Microsoft and bundle Office, MS Camera and default to Bing. Which was well-received by the community known for flashing new ROMs onto their phones /s. And don't get me started about the OEM amateur hour: they inked a deal with OnePlus and shipped as the out-of-the-box OS for the OPO. A lot of people in India bought the phone - win-win-win, right? Then the strategic geniuses signed another agreement with an Indian phone manufacturer with an exclusivity clause that prevented further OTA updates to the OPO phones already in user's hands on the subcontinent. Never mind dissing their upstream ("Cyanogen is putting a bullet to Google's head" - Cyanogen Inc CEO)

rer0tsaz 10y ago

>5. WWJBQD? This refers to Jean-Baptiste ‘JBQ’ Quéru, who responded: put users first. https://plus.google.com/+JeanBaptisteQueru/posts/jjwjobbMUY8 https://plus.google.com/+JeanBaptisteQueru/posts/jjwjobbMUY8

cr0sh 10y ago

Here I was all this time (several years) thinking CyanogenMod was a product by (Android) hackers for (Android) hackers. Now, I find out it's a product by a company...? WTF? I've never used it (and the following is just me talking from my nether regions), but I've always kept it "in my back pocket" as something someday to try out. Why? Because in my mind, it was "non-corporate" - made for the love of the platform, not for money. Maybe that's the problem. Maybe where things went wrong was when they tried to monetize stuff. Stop doing that - everything isn't about money. Or at least, it shouldn't be. More often than not, especially in projects like these, money can corrupt and screw up the whole project. So fork it. Get back to the community, back to the roots. Quit trying to become "the rich guy" - and go back to being "the hacker dude bring cool 5h!7 to the community". Don't even think about the money. If its really worth something, the money will magically appear. Even if it doesn't, what does it matter? It's about the love of the platform, right? RIGHT? So fork it. The community will follow, and not look back at what once was, but will look forward to what can be.

ozten 10y ago
It is both a company (https://cyngn.com/ https://cyngn.com/) and a open source community (https://www.cyanogenmod.org/ https://www.cyanogenmod.org/).
- cr0sh 10y ago
  I guess I just never knew about the "company" part. I should probably review the history of the project, how it started, whether it started "corporate" with an open-source community (nothing wrong with that), or if it was originally a community effort started by somebody(s) then morphed into a company too...? I'm not expecting an answer from you or anyone - it's my responsibility to do the research of course.
pachydermic 10y ago
It was a non-commercial open source project at first. Then they decided to go found a company and get hardware partners to have CyanogenMod phones. The time to try it was like 3-4 years ago!
10y ago

fghjllpours 10y ago

Is this the end of custom ROMs? Between Xposed and a "better" standard android, a lot of the "big" custom ROMs have bit the dust. Aokp, paranoid, slim, omni is moribund, and now CM?

pachydermic 10y ago
The only feature from CM that I miss is the ability to hold the volume up button to skip to the next track (as a global option, not just a per-app thing). Everything else that they did so well has pretty much been added to stock android.
- fghjllpours 10y ago
  And the fact that they support old phones, and their privacy guard is better than stock android
amiga-workbench 10y ago
I don't bother with custom roms as much as I used to, I'm happy enough with root to nuke bloatware and get a systemwide ad-blocker installed. OEM's are finally gaining a little bit of taste in the UI department and I'm not revolted with their products out of the box as much as I used to be.

kilroy123 10y ago

That's a bummer they couldn't make things work. I used CyanogenMod before they turned into a company on some older Andriod phones. The community did make a great ROM and I was hoping they would shake things up. Hopefully, force manufacturers from releasing such bloated horrible custom versions of Android.

betterOffDead 10y ago

CyanogenMod's logo/mascot/whatever is beyond retarded looking. Some stupid, almost-impish little Napster-type cartoon character? It's non-facial expression is, somehow, even more annoying in its tepid inoffensiveness, than if it were to emote as some puckish, edgy dork. I spent hours unlocking some bootloader on my $600 phone so that I could look like a Linkin Park fan, who's into Saturday morning cartoons? I don't remember CyanogenMod looking quite so cheesey in 2011. ClockworkMod's logo was an example of faux 1337 w4r3zd00d chic done well. CyanogenMod looks like ass, and I won't be caught dead with it.

mohanmcgeek 10y ago

*Cyanogen Inc.