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Today, when I went to Sakajati's website to check the release of his new WM6.5 ROM, I was totally depressed and completely lost the mood to flash this brand new ROM, after I read this brief intro:
sakajati
May 4th, 2009 at 5:59 am
Sorry guys for being away, I’ve been under stress due to financial problem. The business is getting worse and worse, I’m afraid I won’t be able to support this website anymore and may also have to sell my device (God I hope this won’t happend). To all hyperdragon users, please consider to support/donate, it may help me so I don’t have to sell this crapy device. Thanks in advance! Enjoy this new rom and let me know for any bugs you found!
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It was exactly the same feeling when yesterday I passed by Mirko Schenk's website and read this:
I aten't ded (12/05/2008, 10:00 PM)
Yeah, I know, I'm a bit slow with updates recently. Somehow, when I wasn't missing free time, all too often I was missing motivation (no, that's not begging for donations) to struggly with the pitfalls of programming after I struggled with them in my job before. And this even though there's currently no girl friend that threadens me when I'd spend more time on my PC than with her. (But admitted, she'd probably wouldn't need to threaden me... )
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Sakajati, a famouse ROM cooker for Kaiser, his Hyperdragon ROM thread in this forum has received 11,178 repplies and 1,574,596 views up to now. Yes, not mistaken, it's more than 1.5 milllion views. Is he brilliant? The numbers speak for themselves.
Mirko Schenk, the name may not much known to public. But if I talk about Mort, every chefs here knows who he is. One of his small programs named 'Mortscript' is now cooked in many of the custom ROMs on this site. Is he brilliant? You can ask every chef here, I guess you'll get the same answer:'Yes, he is VERY brillant.'
These two guys are only examples of many of the brilliant stars here. They all have these two same characters as I know: First, their softwares are all FREE. I.e, they supply free service to pubic without asking any material support from users. Second, I am regret to say, they are all VERY POOR now.
Well, I believe, that the initial puppose of their developing these wares are not for money. I also believe that they would like to continue this cause even if they can not receive one single coin from it, even if they maintain a poor living condition for his own life, they just enjoy it.
On the other hand, have to say this: It is ULTIMATE FORTUNE for a man, that in his life he can find something he likes, he is good at, he did it, and finally he fighted to clime to top of the line. BUT, it is an ULTIMATE UNFORTUNE for him that after he did this, he only found his life is 'worsen and worsen'.
Yes a man's value is not only reallize his own joy, he also has to be responsible for his beloves, his family, his girlfiend, or even his pet. This is the reason they may decide to drop this loved cause and find something else to do. And finally they may be driven out from this society.
Now the question comes: Can we do something to rescue them out of this situation?
Yes, we can donate to their PayPal account.
BUT, to donate to a paypal account is not always convienient for everybody that want to help them.
Actually, there are other much better ways, but the forum rules here does not support it. Like this: Why not allow them to put a simple advertisement on their signature?
Like this one (I found in this thread):
iPhone ... its a maxipad without wings!
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So that viewers can support them by a simple click of their mouse, which will bring a small money for them? Say in Sakajati's case, he has 1.5 million viewers, onlyif 10% of viewers would make a click on the ad, and only if each click can just bring $0.1 for them. That will collect to an amount of $15,000. Which will greatly enhance their life, at lest let them keep the 'crapy device'.
Don't tell me this is impossible for this forum. We have so many super-smart brains here. Actually can set some rules or systems to avoid any 'side effects' of it, like rules on the size, layout, postion, etc of the ad. Who can use it, who can not etc.
Yes, this great forum place should become a worm home for all telents in this line.
MODs: Can you discuss on this issue?
First let me say this is all very sad. Though I never use MortScript, I do sometimes run Sakajati's ROM.
There are unfortunately some issues with what you propose.
While I love XDA-Developers.com (primarily for its people and community), the board owners are not exactly known for 'making things happen'.
Second, clicking ads to "support someone" is a surefire way to get booted from the ad network. This is a definite no in the ad-world and against all regulations. Besides, all this does is move money from businesses who pay for those advertisements to freeware developers, while the users skimp on the cash again, and those who pay for advert gain nothing - you just click to support, not because you are interested in the ad product. So you rise prices for businesses trying to sell something. In turn this will make their products more expensive, you hurt the business and their consumers, and you have gained nothing. Its frowned upon for good reason.
Right now the best and quickest solution is probably still a PayPal rally. Frequent users should simply just donate a few bucks (remember when PayPal'ing, donate at least $2.50 or so or so much will be lost by the money they take, it's hardly worth donating at all). I have been thinking of a solution for this for years, even before I joined the WM community. I may have thought of something but unfortunately right now do not have the time to set up - however it will remain on my to-do list.
Chainfire said:
First let me say this is all very sad. Though I never use MortScript, I do sometimes run Sakajati's ROM.
There are unfortunately some issues with what you propose.
While I love XDA-Developers.com (primarily for its people and community), the board owners are not exactly known for 'making things happen'.
Second, clicking ads to "support someone" is a surefire way to get booted from the ad network. This is a definite no in the ad-world and against all regulations. Besides, all this does is move money from businesses who pay for those advertisements to freeware developers, while the users skimp on the cash again, and those who pay for advert gain nothing - you just click to support, not because you are interested in the ad product. So you rise prices for businesses trying to sell something. In turn this will make their products more expensive, you hurt the business and their consumers, and you have gained nothing. Its frowned upon for good reason.
Right now the best and quickest solution is probably still a PayPal rally. Frequent users should simply just donate a few bucks (remember when PayPal'ing, donate at least $2.50 or so or so much will be lost by the money they take, it's hardly worth donating at all). I have been thinking of a solution for this for years, even before I joined the WM community. I may have thought of something but unfortunately right now do not have the time to set up - however it will remain on my to-do list.
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Thank for your attention on tjis issue. There must be a solution for that, at least not 'completely impossible.
But the circut of money in 'ads' industry. Is just like 'everybody follow the rules here'.
Since the activities concerning 'advertising' may become a key factor in judgement of this issue. Here I add some more info. There are books about 'advertisement', or lots of internet materials available, but probably not everyone has time to read it. Let me just tell what is advertisement in this simple way:
The major target of ads is not to reach people who want the product, because people wants it already knows it. It is targeted to those people who doesn't want it, or even doesn't know it. Advertisement will let them know the product, and MAKE (sorry I use this word) them reallize that they want it.
This is why ads sponsors would be glad to pay even for a mouse click and a slight glance at what they are advertising. At least this make the clicker have a short memery about their brand name, or their product idea.
After read this, you may feel somehow uncomfortble about 'ads'. But sorry, this is just the prevailing commercial activity.
Please Post Your Comments on This Issue!
Anybody pass by here and reading this, if you have some opinion, comments, or different idea about this issue, please post here.
Maybe you are freeware developer, or commercial software developer, or common user, or moderator, it doesn't matter. What I'm thinking about is not trying to persuade the forum board to issue a new advertising policy, really need to be concerned is how to help those GREAT freeware developers OUT. Avertisement is just the best way that I can figure out by myself. But maybe you guys have better idea about this issue.
Here appeal to everybody:
If you are using a freeware, and find it's really helpful, or may bring additional conveineince and joy to your life. Please think about the life of the developer of the freeware. And first please consider a DONATION to them, if you can not, please think about what else you can do.
Everybody please leave your voice here, maybe we can work out a way together!
Also put a post about up on myblog (spam, not finished yet). Who knows maybe it will even help.
I'll be making a serious donation myself. I hope others will do the same.
Chainfire said:
Also put a post about up on myblog (spam, not finished yet). Who knows maybe it will even help.
I'll be making a serious donation myself. I hope others will do the same.
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Certainly yours will be a nice place with lots of chef want to take a look. I went there and found some projects not known to me in the past. Before I only know WMWifiRouter's from you, later WMLongLife, but that's already enough to call you a Master. Now you're master++.
Also noted that you already sent donation confirmation code on Sakajati's site.
You built a nice blog.
Android is open. That's why I have my Samsung Galaxy S, my Nexus One and my Sapphire.
I have these phones because the open community can do better than the professionals, and I am proud to be a member of a community that has recently hacked Froyo onto the G1, Android2HD2 (and other Winmo devices), created great skins and themes, rooted almost every droid to date, hacked google navigation to work in other countries etc etc etc.
There is amazing work being done is this community.
Kingklick was able to put out a lot of ROMs which satisfied a lot of people. Contributors to Cyanogenmod (disclaimer. notably not Cyanogen himself) and others (fans and friends - disclaimer. note lack of word fanboys - of cyanogenmod, disclaimer. plus some others too) have flamed and flamed away about Kangklick (notably via twitter - I have stopped following any of those jerks that clogged up my feeds with what could've - screw that - should've been settled MUCH more privately..I followed you guys for dev news or the occasional interesting insight into your real life, not your petty bickering, but you have every right to post what you like...hence why I stopped following you all, I didn't flame you...note 'bigger man').
Rule 12 of XDArules clearly states that using the work of others must be done with permission, independent of whether it is open source or not. If this is not upheld then the post will be bought down, it does not say the user will be banned. I would understand the formality of taking the post down and requesting Kingklick reposts the ROM with due credit, but I believe - note believe...implies opinion - that moderators may have been influenced by pressure from other (high ranking, public eye) members and thus did not adhere to normal or just (I do not know if not giving creds is normally treated in this way, but you will discover I believe it shouldn't be) protacol. Kingklick broke the rules of XDA, but then again I see his banning as the least contentious issue here.
I believe that members of the XDA community in the public eye (ie with large Twitter follower base) due to their work via XDA (no matter what you say, cyanogenmod may be based at its own domain, but it still posts at XDA to maintain its public profile and feed of the massive XDA userbase, and is hence in part bound by this) have a responsibility to follow the rules of XDA on XDA rules and disputes. I do not think this is something which can be policed ('I'm banning you Wes for Trolling Kingklick...on Twitter'... not gonna work) but I think it is a moral obligation (anyone that thinks the internet is not bound by morality should take a reality check...the reason why we have open source is essentially ethics).
Do we give credit to Linus Torvalds every time we distribute linux kernels or work to do with linux? Do we give credit to those that helped him create this base? Do we give credit to Google for creating Android? HTC? Our carriers? Martin Cooper for inventing the mobile phone and cell networks? Time Berners-Lee for inventing the internet, giving rise to this forum, Google and thus the Phones/Devices we love and use? The fact is we don't give credit where due (although you may say its obscure to thank these people, they DO deserve our thanks). None of the ROM chefs/coders give all credit where due, but a lot do in part, with those directly involved. But who still thanks the original rooters?
Kingklick has been declared a copier by the jury...I haven't delved through the evidence to confirm this...but shouldn't we be much more relaxed about copying in general? All users should be open about their work with Android, but they are not. If kingklick based a build off Cyanongenmod, and gave due credit for that, he would be called unoriginal, despite his attempts to make improvements. I also believe that there should be transparency, a log of all complaints of interest and the community told in a statement from the mods why someone was banned...at least in part (keeping gory details to themselves thank you very much).
Donations are generally given by 'end-users'...noobs who can flash and maybe do some work on the builds but their contributions are limited. End users generally want user experience, and reward devs with commendation and donations. If kingklick does work on a build which satisfies more users and he hence gets donations, is that stealing donations? No. The original dev works on an open source project knowing that their work is open, but the end user can reward as he/she likes. Perhaps kingklick developed his following due to his branding...he did always use words like FAST and STABLE and SMOOTH, but Apple do the same and they're not banned from trading despite the hyperbole.
I do not doubt that a lot of devs thanks fellow devs with donations. Cyanogen is well known for donating, as is kingklick, however a lot of donations come from end users, and if kingklick replaces a few files using winrar (something which I generally contest, I believe kingklick does a lot of great work) and that satisfies more end users by being fast and stable and smooth (or perceived as being so thanks to branding) then he can get donations for that, they are a gesture of satisfaction and goodwill.
Kingklick was immoral by not giving true credit, however I believe that he could have been warned and asked to give credit once he got back from his night out (whether that excuse, or what ever his actual excuse was, was true).
I also laugh at the accusation that kingklick does not fill a niche within the 'open'/'free' community. This should not result in grudges and flame wars, whether it is true or not. Kingklick did fill a niche in my opinion: reviewers (and consumers) see vanilla android as being sterile. Hell it is sterile, and it's never going to be as successful as others if it doesn't sort this out. Cyanogenmod and other big names are based off this sterile form of Android, but they don't delve into Sense UI and other alternative skins, mainly due to preferences or copyright problems etc, not that that stops them with other things. Kingklick did work with these and he filled his niche by delivering great, fast, usable roms of these whilst others sneered at them for being inefficient coding or whatever...geeky snobbery.
Kingklick also delivered various fixes and things which other groups did not. I won't list all of these and I am sure representatives of Cyanogenmob et al will say 'we were gonna fix these issues anyways' or 'that's redundant' or 'that was patchy code', but kingklick has contributed. Obviously we have to hold ethics above output, we can not say that 'his holiness' (inteneded to mock those who believe cyanogen alone is a god, not cyanogen himself) Cyanogen's contributions to android exempt him from following conduct, but we do a great job of driving away good developers with flaming and telling tales. Perhaps you'll say kingklick was not a good developer, Drizzy, even Haykuro etc etc, but I only flashed Cyanogenmod on my Nexus once and I didn't like it for various reasons (personal preference yada yada) but I kept going back for more kingklick...whether that's perceived speed and branding etc or just satisfaction.
King's desire roms are great, but we never mobbed, trolled and banned the poor guy for not giving creds to HTC. Surely the morality of our community using software like Rosie on the Nexus is more ethically questionable than a fellow member of XDA's work, since HTC is a firm which employs people. I bought a Nexus over the Desire because I knew I could still have Sense and a bigger dev community, however the cost included in the Desire which goes to the developers of Sense is hence forgone (perhaps indeirectly, I don;t know HTC internal funding); therefore I have - and anyone who has ever flashed a Sense ROM or devved with Sense - indirectly caused loss of welfare for people who rely of developing as their source of income, tehir families, communities and economies. Surely that is less ethical than not saying thank you, but XDA has no problem with that. Perhaps it is too small to notice, but it will have an indirect impact nonetheless.
Yes kingklick should've said his please and thank you, but I think it's community hyped double standards, pretensical courtesy (not that I wouldn't give creds, it's just that pleases and thank yous are nice, but not actually useful). A wise man once said 'there is no threshold for immorality', just because kingklick did a larger 'crime' than the rest of the community in not giving his thanks out, that does not exempt the other rule breakers (ie everyone), it just means their punishment should be less severe...we choose to ignore it because it's less direct or forgotten about.
In conclusion, I think we should start a 'contributors to Android' part of XDA, added to by mods or specifically appointed members of the community (like the portal). This could be informative and could mean that forgotten about contributors could not be forgotten, but their contributions immortalised in the open community of Android. Even if the contributions become redundant, they are the foundations for the next chapter in the Android story.
Finally. www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html is a very good read..and think about what AOSP stands for (I'll give you a clue...Android Open Source Project!). Can you steal what is open? What right have others to dictate what can and cannot be distributed in the open aspects of Android code (ie the underlying OS and vanilla UI...I'm not confused with Apps). Perhaps kingklick was guilty of plagiarism? But so is anyone that claims they worked really hard in that kernel without crediting Linus and leaving a donation link to his family or favourite charitable causes. Anyone that says I've reworked the UI without giving credits to The Astonishing Tribe for the original Android concepts which all UIs are based off...
Android is closed, that's why I question this 'community'.
I am not proud to be a member of this 'community'...right now.
Ps. Cyanogenmob was originally a typo (using words like mobbed in my piece...Freudian slip on the keyboard rather than fat finger syndrome)...but I kept it in as I thought it was funny...the Cyogenmob should replace team douche IMHO!
Wow, didn't realise how long it was...out of interest has anyone actually read the whole thing !?
Yeah, I read it and agree to some extent.
While what he did was wrong, he shouldn't be banned for it. I do not know all the circumstances around it but from what I read it appears he made sense UI for the Nexus one?
I believe that cyanogen is becoming more and more powerful as a body and it is starting to strong arm others when they believe they are in the wrong. I don't understand why people should shunned as he was simply because he didn't give due credit. From seeing all these devs get the boot from websites because they didn't give all the sources for their work. This is a major hinderance from some people wanting to develop new ROMs. I mean it seems that some people want to get credit for what they did and want to have the fame of what they developed, and not just because they wanted to further the development of phones and custom ROMS.
Some people may not agree with my stance, but I just think you give people another chance for slip ups like that one and not just a boot with no questions asked.
The problem is NOT just using other people work with/without permission...
The problem is cheating the users to get more donations:
Example:
-DevA: Oh, i've been 3 nights compiling the code for you all!!!!
-Users: Ohhh, thankyou, gonna donate for your hard work!!!
-DevA: Ok, here you have the link (and the download is from DevB work with a little text-editor touch-up).
That's not the way of doing things (imho)
sorry but no. the proper way is
devA: "i took all of jubeh's work and 'optimized a text file' and uploaded it, pretty awesome right?"
you: "cool story bro"
devA: "i need a new phone"
you: "im poor but wth if you keep not making your own work and ask for donations"
devA: "ya rly"
you: "maybe i should've donated to the guy that made this all and not the one that file pushed the wifi files over... =("
wow lets have some proof of this please and i quote "Cyanogen is well known for donating, as is kingklick" we know cyan does but prove king does if not take the statement out
If King put in the same amount of effort HazzBazz put in to creating this thread/writing that ever so long first post, we wouldn't be having this conversation.
But really, did we need another thread on this topic ? I lost track but theres been atleast 10+ threads discussing this and all resulting in a lock/user under investigation.
See guys no one from cm contributors told anyone bout banning kk but yes every one was angry that he never gave credit to anyone. We told him a hundred time already to give credit. I don't know if bbannin does justice here but still he violated a lot of rules. He never released his kernel source. Never gave credits for others hard work. Bout drizzy he got banned for scamming a user. It's not winrar but winzip Get ur facts right. We r talking bout crediting the work of the community. If u do something spending day n night on expecting nothing but some respect or credit for ur work u get angry in ur language doing 1 month job n not getting paid. I would recommend u all try contributing before writing such justifications n flames n more. So kingklick was wrong n given many warnings before being banned. He was not a bad dev or something but as I told u reward for a contributor is credits. Bout donating I guess from tomorrow I'll start packaging cm froyo nightlys change the name of the Rom post it n start asking for donations. I'll even put some unicorns n ponies in it for u guys so it ismagical. N if u thing stuff can be fixed without the source u r wrong. For fixing 99% percent of stuff u need to know how to work with source n compile. Rest 1% are silver by pushing files. And again no one from cm asked any mod to ban him. It was their internal decision. There was no influence whatsoever
And one more thing. U all remember Eugene whom u all made run away from magic n dream. He even caught kingklick using his work by adding a coded name oc the Rom that clearly said Eugene n this made king cry. He started accepting he used Eugene work then more proofs came in of he just changing build.prop n posting as his
Hey guys seriously, i spent like all weekend making a site for you to help hax your phones. bandwidth is expensive, so please donate to me!!!!!!! if you like all the work i put into this. you can check my site out at: http://forum.xda-developers.com and if it helps you out, please buy my a nexus. thanks and i'm still here
enatefox said:
Hey guys seriously, i spent like all weekend making a site for you to help hax your phones. bandwidth is expensive, so please donate to me!!!!!!! if you like all the work i put into this. you can check my site out at: http://forum.xda-developers.com and if it helps you out, please buy my a nexus. thanks and i'm still here
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I lawl'd.
I don't have enough money for my family, but you can have some. Where's your donate link you hard worker?
tl;dr
enatefox said:
Hey guys seriously, i spent like all weekend making a site for you to help hax your phones. bandwidth is expensive, so please donate to me!!!!!!! if you like all the work i put into this. you can check my site out at: http://forum.xda-developers.com and if it helps you out, please buy my a nexus. thanks and i'm still here
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Damn man, that site is stupid fast
Im poor and living on the streets but i cant imagine how much work it must've been. Im donating to u
AnderWeb said:
The problem is NOT just using other people work with/without permission...
The problem is cheating the users to get more donations:
Example:
-DevA: Oh, i've been 3 nights compiling the code for you all!!!!
-Users: Ohhh, thankyou, gonna donate for your hard work!!!
-DevA: Ok, here you have the link (and the download is from DevB work with a little text-editor touch-up).
That's not the way of doing things (imho)
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Kingklick developed a fanbase. If they donated is that a crime? He didn't hold for ransom, he just released work without due credit, perhaps mostly someone else's work (havent seen evidence) and hey I put a paper out last term without my complete bibliography done because I was so excited to get it out and I was going away for a week...I finished it off over the break and put it out when I was back, funny that didn't start a war on the internet.
enatefox said:
sorry but no. the proper way is
devA: "i took all of jubeh's work and 'optimized a text file' and uploaded it, pretty awesome right?"
you: "cool story bro"
devA: "i need a new phone"
you: "im poor but wth if you keep not making your own work and ask for donations"
devA: "ya rly"
you: "maybe i should've donated to the guy that made this all and not the one that file pushed the wifi files over... =("
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I like how you're not using any form of personal attack in discussing this issue...give me an example of when kingklick asked asked for donations...theyre just appreciated. And hell did Jubreh give credit to ALL the people who helped him...Linus Torvalds etc? No, so we are all in part imperfect for not giving 'full credit'...call me anal or not.
Daneshm90 said:
If King put in the same amount of effort HazzBazz put in to creating this thread/writing that ever so long first post, we wouldn't be having this conversation.
But really, did we need another thread on this topic ? I lost track but theres been atleast 10+ threads discussing this and all resulting in a lock/user under investigation.
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None of them were philosophical...Ive just finished my second year on joint honours in Philosophy so I find it interesting...and it's not exactly an effort to pile out this when I did it all through term time anyway.
charnsingh_online said:
It's not winrar but winzip Get ur facts right.
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LOL I guess that makes me an invalid...nice
charnsingh_online said:
We r talking bout crediting the work of the community. If u do something spending day n night on expecting nothing but some respect or credit for ur work u get angry in ur language doing 1 month job n not getting paid.
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well uhhhh no its not because you expect to be paid for your job, and in fact you have legal rights ...open source developing is COMPLETELY different
charnsingh_online said:
I would recommend u all try contributing
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True yeah we should all try it...I'm hoping to do computer science post-grad if I get a first...but we dont all have the time or the expertise. I do some file pushing for myself, but I dont release it because if I did (despite getting my roms running fast and to my liking) I'd get slated by some snooty coders and fanboys.
charnsingh_online said:
before writing such justifications n flames n more.
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nb. see lack of flaming...
charnsingh_online said:
It was their internal decision. There was no influence whatsoever
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Try twitter.com and look at a lot of members of Cyanogenmob's (still sticking by that, will use that in non-derogatory circumstances, still revelling in the typo!) tweets.
And hey if kingklick can deliver to the end users then there's no use slagging him off...youre equally insulting anyone that thought his roms were good. His slide rom has so much positive feedback for instance.
JAguirre1231 said:
I lawl'd.
I don't have enough money for my family, but you can have some. Where's your donate link you hard worker?
tl;dr
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Daneshm90 said:
Damn man, that site is stupid fast
Im poor and living on the streets but i cant imagine how much work it must've been. Im donating to u
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Yay mock donators now too.
HazzBazz, since you're gonna be like this here goes:
We all know the kangers. They're everywhere from your local grocer to the bus driver. Yes, kangers live peacefully among us. What you didn't know is that the real issue, for me at least, is that when I had my old Windows phone w/Android ported on it, we would bust our asses off (look at the Vogue thread) and people would micro-manage or "release" our work as theirs. Basically we would bust our asses off for free (never have I ever asked for a donation nor have I received a single penny for my time) and these people would zip it up and host it on their own site and build a fan base.
Ok so what right? well the people that post in those threads then have bugs to report. who do they report them too? the guy that said he made the ROM-- not us. he says "lolz i don't know guys" then we fix it then he gets thanked. then, he gets the donation. it pisses me off and I never got paid. imagine the unemployed devs out there.
You can at least see my point, right?
F'sure. Hence why I dont release anything. But to you guys kangers are pests. I do not doubt that kangers should be policed. However the credit issue is something which is neglected at a small level by everyone, so no one is perfect...and the great thing about a big site like xda is that most kangers on other websites have tiny fanbases.
I respect your work because of its own credence, and plagiarism will sure as hell piss anyone off who puts time into things, but we must remember that these are donations, given freely. I think we should do more to inform the 'end users' than ban and drive away devs who deliver what some users want...albeit with some undue credit (inform..allow the end users to make informed decisions).
HazzBazz said:
Kingklick developed a fanbase. If they donated is that a crime? He didn't hold for ransom, he just released work without due credit, perhaps mostly someone else's work (havent seen evidence)
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I will stop you there as the rest of what you say is boring.
Oh and use the search button or cache on google to find(as you call it) evidence
Have a Nice Day
If you like my work, buy bill gates a stuffed penguin.
Love it yeah. Your logical, fair and anticipatory argument leaves me speechless.
'Rest of what you say is boring'...darn I'm upset and speechless...that hurts. It's like Primary school bullies here, only fails.
With regard to 'haven't seen evidence'...I wasn't saying kingklick did or did not do that or this...Im simply saying I (personally) havent seen the evidence (not because it doesn't exist or does exist), but ultimately Kingklick was found guilty of using someone else's work without saying please and thankyou, and was hence driven away from us.
I will be hated on, but I don't care. Bring the King back. I love his Desire Sense UI ROM's.
First off let me say this isnt my style, I am not one for airing anyones business. I wanted to keep the matter private and handle it behind the scenes so that this small issue didnt turn in to an all out war. As you can see this is exactly what happened.
I am only doing this because i want to clear the air for everyone involved, you all got worked up over nothing really. I will give you a very brief explanation of what happened, and i will not name any names.
With that being said, i first want to make an apology to the 2 devs involved:
Bananacakes, i think that i might not have stated my case very well with you, and based on your posts i feel that there might have been a language barrier and you may have taken what i said out of context. All i ever wanted was for you to talk to me about the issue so i could get your side of the story and make a determination.
WildChild, im sorry that i did not delete BC's rant with everyone elses. I didnt mean to make you look like an a$$. I wanted to give BC a voice on the matter but i didnt want to censor him completely. And in hindsight i may have damaged your name. Was not my intention, and i feel bad that it happened.
In this open community it is acceptable to share and borrow from others but its common courtesy to give the other dev credit for their work.
***********
A brief summary of what happened:
A MEMBER of the community (not one of the devs involved) brought to me an issue of similarities between 2 dev's. provided some screen shots and asked me to investigate the matter, as it APPEARED to be a Kanging issue (to get the story straight, it was MORE than just a so called script). So i contacted both devs involved, one was very cooperative and the other never contacted me. I waited 5 days before i took the next step at contacting the dev and this is where it all turned really ugly and public.
***********
Now, in this issue there has been numerous attacks on each others and some very ugly things said. Im willing to overlook all of those at this moment as i know a lot of you were upset. Loosing 2 dev's is a serious matter when we dont have that many to begin with. If i see anymore angry posts towards one another i will not hesitate to issue temporary/permanent bans (depending on severity).
Now quick, everyone, group hug!
I am going to leave it open for in case anyone wants to comment or beg either dev to come back. But the instant that someone gets negative toward either dev (i dont care if you talk bad about me, lol) i will lock this from comments.
I had this as a sticky, but in reality there isnt much going on in here right now, so really there is no need. I will only sticky if it starts to fall towards the bottom.
Please come back WC , WE MISS YOU
Was there wrong doing? Is the HoliRaider thread coming back?
jazzmoe76 said:
Was there wrong doing? Is the HoliRaider thread coming back?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nothing has been proved at this point. And the HoliRaider thread is being looked at by pstevep.
jazzmoe76 said:
Was there wrong doing? Is the HoliRaider thread coming back?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am waiting to talk to bananacakes before any decisions are made. I'm hoping we can work all of this out in a friendly non confrontational way.
I will post here any updates.
Thanks everyone for cooperating.
Sent from my PG86100 using xda premium
Everyone needs to just take it easy and not take things too serious. We should just stay focused on the prize, which is producing the best ROMs this phone has ever seen. All that arguing doesn’t get us closer to our goals, but hinders it. So Bananacakes and WC, just chill out and come back, your both good developers. After everyone is back to work and producing again, all this will be forgotten. Especially with ICS just around the corner, we'll need you even more.
NIKKG said:
Everyone needs to just take it easy and not take things too serious. We should just stay focused on the prize, which is producing the best ROMs this phone has ever seen. All that arguing doesn’t get us closer to our goals, but hinders it. So Bananacakes and WC, just chill out and come back, your both good developers. After everyone is back to work and producing again, all this will be forgotten. Especially with ICS just around the corner, we'll need you even more.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+ 1
Sent from my HTC PH39100 using XDA App
So... The only 2 devs that we had left.. are gone?
Language barrier? Is one of y'alls native language something other than English?
Sent from my HTC Vivid
Crimson Ghoul said:
So... The only 2 devs that we had left.. are gone?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I havent seen any comments through this whole ordeal from Vhjc or PirateGhost, so i would assume they are still with us. As far as i know its just WildChild and BananaCakes that have decided to leave us. We do hope that they will reverse their decision and decide to come back.
haggardh said:
Language barrier? Is one of y'alls native language something other than English?
Sent from my HTC Vivid
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yes, and Bananacakes has stated on a few occasions that his english isnt that great. I personally felt that it was pretty good, but there was definitely some misunderstandings along the way. So i can only assume that it was a language barrier.
shogunmark said:
I havent seen any comments through this whole ordeal from Vhjc or PirateGhost, so i would assume they are still with us. As far as i know its just WildChild and BananaCakes that have decided to leave us. We do hope that they will reverse their decision and decide to come back.
yes, and Bananacakes has stated on a few occasions that his english isnt that great. I personally felt that it was pretty good, but there was definitely some misunderstandings along the way. So i can only assume that it was a language barrier.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Only Bananacakes and Wild Child were constantly updating their roms though... that's what I meant
I have been edited because i cant follow directions.
shogunmark said:
If i see anymore angry posts towards one another i will not hesitate to issue temporary/permanent bans (depending on severity).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So the mods are devs?!?
Sent from my HTC PH39100 using XDA App
come at me bro said:
So the mods are devs?!?
Sent from my HTC PH39100 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am the only mod involved with this. But to answer your question, no i am not currently a dev.
NIKKG said:
Everyone needs to just take it easy and not take things too serious. We should just stay focused on the prize, which is producing the best ROMs this phone has ever seen. All that arguing doesn’t get us closer to our goals, but hinders it. So Bananacakes and WC, just chill out and come back, your both good developers. After everyone is back to work and producing again, all this will be forgotten. Especially with ICS just around the corner, we'll need you even more.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
For real... finally, a voice of reason. I mean, common sense. Okay so everyone has something to be bitter about. But how will that get anyone anywhere?
Walking away from a problem is NEVER the solution. At least Pirate and vhjc are still here, or so it seems.
I have had chat's with both guys at on point or another & in jest I probably started this, or some of it anyways.
However, the way I see it is that Android is a Linux fork complete with GPL requirements & in reality it is virtually impossible to Kang anything that is linux or Android related, aside from user side code.
Development at this stage is in it's infancy for the Vivid & Raider due to the lack of sources as well as the lack of developer involvement.
Android is all in all an open source project created with the intent of giving end users more fredom & choices. It is also a fairly easy platform to learn & develop for & on.
Kernels built are based partly on code from Google & sometimes the oem as well. Modifying a Kernel is a fun & sometimes brings us positive changes that improve our devices. How about the addition of the Bravia Engine & XLoud? Cool, right? But nobody thanks Sony in their posts. The whole point of opensource projects & a GPL is that we are supposed to work together to improve devices for ourselves & for end-users. We are supposed to share & collaberate in an effort to streamline our builds, WE ARE SUPPOSED TO BE A DEVELOPER COMMUNITY.
Yes, it's nice to see your name & be recognized for accomplishments, but that should be secondary, if an issue at all, to development. Let's be honest, most everyone cooking roms is "kanging" (for lack of a more accurate word) code from device chef's that have worked devices released before the Vivid, like the Sensation. We are all definitely "kanging' code from LG, Sony, HTC & Samsung.
Many of the Chef's/Cook's or whatever you want to call them, wouldn't even have an idea without work spanning back over a decade when XDA was truly a developer community forum. Look at all the work BuzzLightYear & itsme did & published for the betterment of the community. It's a different time now & instead of power users & developers being the owners of smartphones, now everyone that has a mobile pretty much has a "Smartphone".
Many of you don't even know that I cook roms. I don't publish them though, aside from a close friend or two, because of all this contention about what belongs to whom. Frankly, unless it is a program, more than likely the work has been done or modified somewhere in some forum on this planet. Unless you are truly rewriting a driver or an application, most everything else is part of the GPL & considered opensource.
I like Bananacakes rom. I like the graphics because the higher contrast makes it easier for me to read. I also like WildChild, bot the stability of his roms & him personally. We talk & razz each other at least once a week. I take both of their roms & mesh then into something I use for a daily driver. I use a modded version of the Rezound Incredikernel for my kernel & scripts from a dozen people. I will never publish it. I don't want to hear how I stole this or that, half of which was really stollen from the oem developer anyway, so I refuse to put myself thru that.
Most threads recognize people that have contributed & so many people contribute & there are so many parts to a rom that it's easy to overlook something that a member may have worked on. This crap all started around the time of the TouchPro & TouchPro 2. People stopped sharing source & started trying to lock down their roms & development stiffled. Sure, there were some cooks that made PRETTY roms, but there was no innovation, not truly.
Either this is a community working on an open source project, and like a family we all share from each others experiences & knowledge, or this is the death of development communities & everything might as well be an iPhone since everyone thinks their contributions are their intellectual property.
For this to remain a true development community, we need to share our work in the spirit of open source. This collaboration has to be a two way street though. If you borrow from someones work, then when you find way of improving upon it, you need to publish it, to share it.
And for criminies sake, knock off the 10 year old "I'm taking my ball home" crap. Kiss & make up, shake hands, get a room...whatever...Just share & share ALIKE & lets get on with making the Vivid the best device.
To all non-developing members: Really, Android is easy to develop for. A ton of the work can be done in a good text editor. There are really goog resources available to help you setup a development environment & even help you learn & write a first simple application. I promise you, it is much less daunting & intimidating than many think. Wild Child is a self-taught developer whom is really not involved in development as a career. I have some professional programming experience, but it is very specific (LANWorks & BACNet). I am not a mobile developer by trade. I'd hate to see either of these guys leave the community, but if they do then step up & learn to help yourself. Start with something you want to change, read learn & then it's trial & error time. Cooking a rom is the easy part. Making it truly unique & perform better than stock is also easy on many levels. It can be as simple making a few changes in text files. We need that. We also need better drivers, our devices are capable of 5Ghz wireless-n connectivity, but the drivers & implementation from HTC prevent it. Better media native compatibility is also another big thing that is possible. Again, this is a community, or supposed to be at least, so get involved. Make an effort.
shogunmark said:
I havent seen any comments through this whole ordeal from Vhjc or PirateGhost, so i would assume they are still with us. As far as i know its just WildChild and BananaCakes that have decided to leave us. We do hope that they will reverse their decision and decide to come back.
yes, and Bananacakes has stated on a few occasions that his english isnt that great. I personally felt that it was pretty good, but there was definitely some misunderstandings along the way. So i can only assume that it was a language barrier.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I would have never noticed that. Now that I think about it Some things do stick out. Well Thank you. I just saw where hes from. That being said its a different culture between the two. So in each others eyes they were right, and the other wrong.
So I hope neither of them are the stubborn type and decide to work things out.
GSLEON3 nailed it!!!!!! Yes, yes, yes and yes.
GSLEON3 said:
I have had chat's with both guys at on point or another & in jest I probably started this, or some of it anyways.
However, the way I see it is that Android is a Linux fork complete with GPL requirements & in reality it is virtually impossible to Kang anything that is linux or Android related, aside from user side code.
Development at this stage is in it's infancy for the Vivid & Raider due to the lack of sources as well as the lack of developer involvement.
Android is all in all an open source project created with the intent of giving end users more fredom & choices. It is also a fairly easy platform to learn & develop for & on.
Kernels built are based partly on code from Google & sometimes the oem as well. Modifying a Kernel is a fun & sometimes brings us positive changes that improve our devices. How about the addition of the Bravia Engine & XLoud? Cool, right? But nobody thanks Sony in their posts. The whole point of opensource projects & a GPL is that we are supposed to work together to improve devices for ourselves & for end-users. We are supposed to share & collaberate in an effort to streamline our builds, WE ARE SUPPOSED TO BE A DEVELOPER COMMUNITY.
Yes, it's nice to see your name & be recognized for accomplishments, but that should be secondary, if an issue at all, to development. Let's be honest, most everyone cooking roms is "kanging" (for lack of a more accurate word) code from device chef's that have worked devices released before the Vivid, like the Sensation. We are all definitely "kanging' code from LG, Sony, HTC & Samsung.
Many of the Chef's/Cook's or whatever you want to call them, wouldn't even have an idea without work spanning back over a decade when XDA was truly a developer community forum. Look at all the work BuzzLightYear & itsme did & published for the betterment of the community. It's a different time now & instead of power users & developers being the owners of smartphones, now everyone that has a mobile pretty much has a "Smartphone".
Many of you don't even know that I cook roms. I don't publish them though, aside from a close friend or two, because of all this contention about what belongs to whom. Frankly, unless it is a program, more than likely the work has been done or modified somewhere in some forum on this planet. Unless you are truly rewriting a driver or an application, most everything else is part of the GPL & considered opensource.
I like Bananacakes rom. I like the graphics because the higher contrast makes it easier for me to read. I also like WildChild, bot the stability of his roms & him personally. We talk & razz each other at least once a week. I take both of their roms & mesh then into something I use for a daily driver. I use a modded version of the Rezound Incredikernel for my kernel & scripts from a dozen people. I will never publish it. I don't want to hear how I stole this or that, half of which was really stollen from the oem developer anyway, so I refuse to put myself thru that.
Most threads recognize people that have contributed & so many people contribute & there are so many parts to a rom that it's easy to overlook something that a member may have worked on. This crap all started around the time of the TouchPro & TouchPro 2. People stopped sharing source & started trying to lock down their roms & development stiffled. Sure, there were some cooks that made PRETTY roms, but there was no innovation, not truly.
Either this is a community working on an open source project, and like a family we all share from each others experiences & knowledge, or this is the death of development communities & everything might as well be an iPhone since everyone thinks their contributions are their intellectual property.
For this to remain a true development community, we need to share our work in the spirit of open source. This collaboration has to be a two way street though. If you borrow from someones work, then when you find way of improving upon it, you need to publish it, to share it.
And for criminies sake, knock off the 10 year old "I'm taking my ball home" crap. Kiss & make up, shake hands, get a room...whatever...Just share & share ALIKE & lets get on with making the Vivid the best device.
To all non-developing members: Really, Android is easy to develop for. A ton of the work can be done in a good text editor. There are really goog resources available to help you setup a development environment & even help you learn & write a first simple application. I promise you, it is much less daunting & intimidating than many think. Wild Child is a self-taught developer whom is really not involved in development as a career. I have some professional programming experience, but it is very specific (LANWorks & BACNet). I am not a mobile developer by trade. I'd hate to see either of these guys leave the community, but if they do then step up & learn to help yourself. Start with something you want to change, read learn & then it's trial & error time. Cooking a rom is the easy part. Making it truly unique & perform better than stock is also easy on many levels. It can be as simple making a few changes in text files. We need that. We also need better drivers, our devices are capable of 5Ghz wireless-n connectivity, but the drivers & implementation from HTC prevent it. Better media native compatibility is also another big thing that is possible. Again, this is a community, or supposed to be at least, so get involved. Make an effort.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have decided to teach myself the trades of development on the android system. Need to put my AAS degree to the test
Sent from my HTC Vivid
I seen this in my Twitter feed and figured I'd share it here. It's the story of cm. How it all started..really investing stuff. He also talks about launching an cm installer that will be available in the play store in the next few weeks. Check it out and show your support people!
http://www.cyanogenmod.org/blog/a_new_chapter
Sent from my Nexus 4 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app
this is from G+, from the developer of Focal, and why a bunch of contributors/developers for cm are upset about the whole thing..
Guillaume Lesniak originally shared:
I remained silent about the whole Focal relicensing troubles for now. There was a lot of drama between the app being GPL, and the fact Cyanogen Inc wanted to use it, which drove some frustration between me, some CM contributors, and CM leaders. As a result, to avoid any problem, Focal has been removed from CyanogenMod. I think you deserve explanations and “behind the scenes” view on how all of this happened, and to know it’s not just a last-minute decision or ragequit.
This is the true, fully-featured story of the “Focal drama”. It's not a rant about how Cyanogen Inc is bad or anything (and it can be a good thing, with a few conditions, see at the end of the post), but just an insight on how this all happened, and how some people were and are feeling.
A few months ago, I decided to work on an app to replace AOSP’s Camera app after +Steve Kondik expressed concerns about the camera experience on CyanogenMod in a G+ post. I decided to take the challenge, and build up a camera app that would be up with users’ expectations: accessible and innovative UI, but fully-featured.
You all know how that worked out - the app has been out for some time now. I’ve been keeping the “internal” CM team (read: the CyanogenMod Dev private G+ group) tuned with my progress, releasing them mockups, screenshots and videos of the progress. Luckily, nobody ever leaked what it was, even with the big storm we started with the Nemesis trailer.
A few days before we started organizing Focal’s launch, I was approached by +Koushik Dutta and +Steve Kondik . They wanted to talk to me about CyanogenMod’s future developments, that sounded cool. Koush told me in a video chat Cyanogen’s plans since he left Samsung: they found investors, and they’re ready to push forward Cyanogen Inc, a company selling services for CyanogenMod. At first, that sounded amazing, getting a few bucks for working on something I’ve been doing for free for some time. That would allow the student I am to get some stuff and get a kickstart for my future life. That would have given me the chance to spend more time on CM, as I wouldn't need to work elsewhere. Now, I didn’t have much information about what were Cyanogen Inc plans to make money, but I expected it to be through some kind of services - koush told me about CMID, which later became CMAccount, or other premium things like a one-click installer, or even a CMPhone. That sounded like a nice addition to CyanogenMod, leaving the community intact, and adding more value to the software distribution.
I had a similar chat with Steve, where he explained me some of the other aspects of Cyanogen Inc, his philosophy about it, etc. Okay, that sounds like a good plan, get me involved and enhance the open distribution I know and love. I have a few emails back and forth between Steve, Koush and me, talking about what I could work on, what I could enhance on Focal, etc. They’re telling me they’re looking into contracts, and I wait.
That’s when the “drama” started.
I got a Hangouts chat from Koush, saying that Focal would need to be relicensed because GPL isn’t ideal -- wait what, not ideal for an Open Source project?
“The issue is that we need to be able to relicense it”
“It’ll be open as GPL, but CM can do what they want with it.”
Yes, Cyanogen Inc. will need to do changes in CyanogenMod’s source code - because here’s another way they will finance the project: customization for their customers (e.g. carriers). This will imply the work done by the community will be sold to a third party by Cyanogen Inc, and that they have to do changes that they cannot put online publicly. A future conversation with Steve Kondik will reveal that they might need to put hardware-specific enhancement for some camera devices, and that has to be hacked in the Camera app code. Putting these changes inside Camera apps instead of Hardware Abstraction Layers (HAL) could break other apps, which ironically kind of go against the goal of CTS (because then, only the “official” camera app will have those enhancements). Of course, those hardware enhancements are trade secrets, so they cannot be published back to CyanogenMod’s public repositories...
So this is where I started to feel screwed. I didn’t think much further, but I felt like I had no other choice but comply with Cyanogen’s relicensing, and allow them to do whatever they want with my code, and sell it customized to their vendors. They used the Contributor License Agreement as an argument, saying that basically they could do anything with my code since I submitted it.
At the same time, the “cyngn.com” domain was discovered, and concerns rised about what the hell it was. People such as pulser_g2 started to find connections between Cyngn.com, Kirt McMaster, Steve Kondik, Koushik Dutta, and all these people working at a “secret company” in a “secret location”. From ways I cannot even explain, he was able to come up with everything Koush and Steve told me, how they’d make money, and what are their future plans. Since he already knew everything, I told him about what was going on with Focal licensing, and he came up with the fact that this wasn’t legally right: the software is licensed as GPL, the repository on CyanogenMod’s github is forked from my GitHub, so it didn’t go through the Contributor License Agreement (which only applies to Gerrit submissions), and the Berne convention can prove through the commits history that I did fully write the app, and not Cyanogen Inc. - and even if the CLA would apply, it only allows them to sublicense the software, not relicense or dual-license it without my permission.
I didn’t want to be a jerk on that licensing story, and went ahead to resolve the issue directly in private with Steve. At the same time, other people such as Andrew Dodd (Entropy512) beginned to hear echoes about something was going on with Cyanogen, and heard about the GPL licensing issues around the time Land of Droid revealed the connections. He got really upset about that, getting only silence or vague answers from CM leads, turning around sentences.
That’s where they started lying to the community, denying they had something to do with cyngn.com, denying there was a commercialization of CyanogenMod going on. When people said “Why would Focal get relicensed?” they would just say “No, it’s not relicensed. It will stay GPL.” - yes, that’s where “relicense” became “dual-license”, where the app would remain GPL publicly, but still allow Cyanogen Inc to do what they want with it. But they didn't mention that publicly.
pulser_g2 raised some points on an XDA post that became quite famous, quoted by some news websites, and raised to the attention of some CM leads.
The official answer was: “Don’t interfere, don’t reply, let it go”
So, they didn’t confirm or infirm that CyanogenMod was or was not going commercial. If it wasn’t going commercial, they would have denied it. But here, they ask to “let it go”. Why not tell the truth? For them, it was better to just sweep it under the rug. But who was right in the end?
At that point in time, I still had no news about the contracts I was meant to receive weeks ago for working with Cyanogen Inc on Focal. I pinged ciwrl, who told me to check with koush, who told me to check with Steve, who didn’t reply.
At that time, they also started scrapping features from CyanogenMod. Device’s “Advanced settings” disappeared, without getting a proper replacement first. Some features aren't considered as useful enough, and didn’t make it into the new CMHW HAL. Even if users want something, they won’t get it if it’s not useful enough. Save to external SD disappeared as well from the AOSP Camera app, because it breaks Google’s CTS. Root access is planned to be COMPLETELY removed by default, and to be downloaded in a separate package. Users don’t use root anyway, they say. All of this because of a future CyanogenMod Phone, which has to pass CTS to get Google Apps officially. Want some exotic features? Too bad. You won’t get them if Google don’t. Wasn’t that the point of CyanogenMod originally? Derp.
That’s when my concerns started to raise about the community contributions. People such as +Nebojša Cvetković contributed a lot of features to CyanogenMod’s launcher “Trebuchet”, and felt bad about not getting any reward for his work, when Cyanogen Inc. would make money out of it. Same concerns were raised by other maintainers and developers who contribute, or used to contribute to CyanogenMod. It was the last bit required for multiple people to leave the CyanogenMod development community, or for some users to simply stop using CyanogenMod. They didn’t know exactly what Cyanogen Inc was up to, but since the leaders would just lie to them to hide the truth, they felt let down. And it was clear from my chats with Steve that they had no ideas or plans, besides contracting everyone, to reward contributors. But they cannot just contract everyone, like nebkat as he’s not old enough yet to have a contract. Some other people just don’t want to be contracted, but still want to get a reward. It’s only recently that I told Steve that people would be totally happy with some perks (computer stuff, t-shirts, usb drives, devices for big contributors, etc.), and it seems like he didn’t think about that at first.
This continued for some time, until now. Cyanogen Inc is now public, and they revealed (part of) their plans for the near future. And a sentence struck me on most news sites that relayed the news: they talk about “Cyanogen’s new Camera app” -- what WHAT? So it’s Cyanogen’s camera app now? It not a CONTRIBUTION anymore?! - They claim it's their app, and I still had no news about the whole licensing thing, even if I had the chance to raise the point a few times.
This was too much this time - I pulled the alarm. I first contacted +Abhisek Devkota on why it was phrased this way, to be welcomed with a “You submitted it…” … Uhm, no, but he wasn’t going to argue with me, and told me to see that with Steve, which I did. After some chat, explaining how he could reward nebkat and other contributors, he told me that he was still waiting on me to “list my pricing, features and milestones for Focal” -- which I did, back on July 23rd. I never had any answer, seemingly because the “Focal drama started” and he got frustrated. From there, it seemed like Steve just wanted to stop dealing with it because “this is too much drama”. The exact drama part that bothers him? Well, some contributors weren’t happy about what Cyanogen Inc is. +Andrew Dodd really insisted and wanted to have explanations on WHY Focal would need to be relicensed, and why all this secrecy, without any real answer ever.
And how does Steve deals with these kind of reactions now? Easy answer:
“Oh god please tell me the story. grabs popcorn” https://plus.google.com/u/0/101093310520661581786/posts/1ev1FJpSCE3
Well, here’s your story. And here’s how they treat huge contributors like Andrew, who aren’t big enough and don’t open their mouth with the right people. The most ironical thing? If they want to dual-license, it is to make non-open changes to the apps. So, we’ll need CyanogenMod for the CyanogenMod Phone, because the code shipping on the device won’t match the public code.
Steve’s argument to avoid rewarding people, is that people wants to be “retroactively paid” - but he doesn’t seem to understand that people contributed when CyanogenMod was still a project all about open source, that wasn’t removing features from the ROM, and that had no commercial intentions. Nebkat contributed a lot of stuff in the Launcher, which is a central component of CyanogenMod today. But he did it a few months ago, “before” Cyanogen Inc, so he doesn’t deserve anything. But Cyanogen Inc can sell it to his customers.
Entropy512 wanted to clarify that point for his situation, which is true for many other contributors: “Some people like myself contribute to the project to keep our minds sharp and it's rewarding in and of itself. I make more than enough money in my day job. If someone is planning on creating a closed source fork, which is the only thing that dual licensing enables, it is no longer rewarding.”
Now, don't get me wrong. Cyanogen Inc is a huge milestone for CyanogenMod, and I can only applaud Steve for the initiative and being able to get there. There are not only dark points with the company, far from that. There’s a big bright side: CyanogenMod will become more stable, and will eventually get more features (even if they’re not going to do anything against CTS). Device support might get enhanced, since they’re paid to work on it now (even if issues existing for a LONG time aren’t fixed). And users maybe will get official support.
But the community can feel let down at some point. People from external ROMs would have loved to contribute back to CM at some point. However when Cyanogen’s leaders refers to Paranoid Android or AOKP, they call it “that other ROM”. Steve, always saying “Go ahead and fork”, isn’t actually taking seriously contributions from other developers. And since external contributors know their contributions are going to be ignored, they just don’t submit anything.
I could go on and on with many other things, how the code review is done (or rather, not done), how submissions are just -2’d without explanations, how they criticize XDA users (yes, where ¾ of their user base come from), how they complain people don’t contribute, when they DID but the patch was ignored because the maintainer didn’t want it at that time, how unstable devices are tagged as RC/stable (without asking their maintainers ; Netflix won’t run on a “stable” build of CM for exynos devices), etc. But I’m not here for that.
At this point, on my end the issue is solved, Focal is pulled from CyanogenMod. It wasn't a last minute decision, it wasn't just because I discovered it just now. It's something that has been running for around two months, and the solution was only found yesterday after a long discussion, and because it had to be stopped quickly.
I will keep on improving the app, fixing bugs, and make it better. If it’s not in CyanogenMod, then it will find room in another ROM. The app is GPL, and I will put it up on the Play Store at some point.
I have plans to raise the awareness of the importance of Open Source, and how GPL doesn't prevent any paid work, and that that there are easy ways to keep the community happy with such a situation.
And at the same time, I wish the best to Cyanogen Inc.
Keep in mind: CyanogenMod wouldn’t be what it is today without its contributors. If you’re able to run CyanogenMod on your device today, it might not be only thanks to Steve, Koushik or Ricardo. There are hundreds of people behind them who pushed many patches, and enabled many devices as a hobby. Have you ever heard of them?
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Should be interesting on how all this will play out....
Can't wait for the phones...
The ironic thing is that if CM really does start putting out phones there is a decent chance that they'll be the only devices guaranteed NOT to be supproted by CM as we currently think of it today. Can you imagine CM posting links to how to root these devices, or pointing to drivers/etc so that you can build your own CM variants for them?
I really do hope that this doesn't turn out to be the case, but one of the downsides to an aftermarket project "going mainstream" is that it often results in a product that isn't really any better than the products it previously sought to replace.
I would love to try Focal sans CM...looking forward to it!
wideasleep1 said:
I would love to try Focal sans CM...looking forward to it!
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Play store. Focal (Beta). Would post a link, but I'm on my phone. Works just as good as the version previously bundled in cm.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=fr.xplod.focal
wideasleep1 said:
I would love to try Focal sans CM...looking forward to it!
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tvall said:
Play store. Focal (Beta). Would post a link, but I'm on my phone. Works just as good as the version previously bundled in cm.
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simms22 said:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=fr.xplod.focal
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LOL! Yep! I didn't hafta wait long..did I?!?!
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=fr.xplod.focal
Team BBQ is EASY to remember!
Wow, I didn't know it was this bad.
Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 4
Daaaaaamn!
This is what happens when greed, fame and money take over your life.
https://plus.google.com/106978520009932034644/posts/L8FJkrcahPs
It's the last build of CM I've had on my phone. Going to stock ROM, and using xposed modules.
For years CM being a leader on open source. But soon as they smell money/power, it all goes downhill.
Losing freedom and features, CM will try become a mainstream ROM that carriers can buy. CM will become a Touchwiz.
With no root and extra device features, since Google won't allow it.
4+ years of tireless community work and that's all you have to say? This isn't like some typical scenario that plays perfectly in your head cause it reassures certain prejudices in your life. The leads as well as their work should have earned them some good faith.
I would like to read the story of how his original plan got clouded by money and turned a cool thing into a corporate mess.
r00t4rd3d said:
I would like to read the story of how his original plan got clouded by money and turned a cool thing into a corporate mess.
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Soon...
Wow, this is really weak. This sounds like Kindergarten to me.
Sent from my Nexus 4 using xda app-developers app
I'm starting to hate CM now
Honestly, it worked out how you would expect. Part of the problem is many of the people contributing are not able to be compensated by the new corporation (underage, etc). However, at the end of the day, they will get good people working for them on paid positions so you will have more consistent work I would presume. I don't think they will change their vision dramatically, so I wouldn't think they are going to completely sell out and destroy the project.
bozzykid said:
I don't think they will change their vision dramatically, so I wouldn't think they are going to completely sell out and destroy the project.
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Some would argue your first point has already happened and your second point is the end-game and your last point is the worst case scenario that seems more likely now than, say, July.
Folks will need to decide for themselves whether they want to ride the company train into the company town to shop at the company store. Many are already beholden to Google/Facebook/Twiiter that they'll never even notice.
Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 2
bozzykid said:
Honestly, it worked out how you would expect. Part of the problem is many of the people contributing are not able to be compensated by the new corporation (underage, etc). However, at the end of the day, they will get good people working for them on paid positions so you will have more consistent work I would presume. I don't think they will change their vision dramatically, so I wouldn't think they are going to completely sell out and destroy the project.
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Despite my earlier posts, I'm willing to wait and see how things go, but MANY community-driven FOSS projects have gone through this and it rarely turns out well. It is one thing when a company starts out as a company (like MySQL) and just happens to release everything as FOSS along the way. It is another when a project starts out community-driven and tries to turn into a company, for the reason you already stated.
Healthy community projects have a very diverse set of small contributors. This means that if individuals leave or burn out there isn't a huge loss to the community. Healthy companies can really only operate if you have a small number of serious contributors. They can't pay hundreds of people, and if they paid by the patch the work just wouldn't be worth doing for the sake of the money.
Motivations for contributing to non-profits tend to be different from those for contributing to for-profits. People will just give away $200 worth of their time to a FOSS non-profit. People will usually not part with such time to benefit a for-profit unless the contribution is somehow self-serving.
The irony of this is that a successful FOSS organization that gets an infusion of cash can end up spending that money on salaries and get less labor out of the deal...
A corporate CM was bound to happen someday. Shame though. I remember reading Steve's first interviews about cm and his visions and how honorable they were. Hope the team doesn't throw it all out the window for money.
Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 4
Hello everyone,
As i am new here in the XDA world i don't know if this thread is legal or not but i will give it a shot, why not. I was always an apple fan boy since ipad 1, but for the past year i was having my doubts about apple. So i did my self a favor and i purchase an android device, more specifically a Samsung galaxy tab s 8.4 ( wifi only ) or aka ( SM-T700). I did a heave research before i purchased it and i realized it was the best thing under 10". ( i knew i was a getting a TW device )
After my purchase i realised i was not happy at all with the performance of the tablet and a friend suggested XDA as he is using it heavily for his own devices ( tab s, moto g 1st, kindle fire ) He was super pleased with the work of all the devs in here so i said why not, i will join.
After going through all the threads one by one, and reading every single post in them ( talking about T700 threads only ) i realized that the devs that are so effortlessly working on the ROMS and kernels they either don't have the tablet to test or they are not so motivated as they used to be, mainly because people demand things from them without giving back. I recently read in a thread a developer trying to defend his position about his ROM and another guy talking to him about the ROM and the battery life like sh**. Well if it was me i would easily ask from XDA to ban that user. After witnessing that i was like "WT* Dude"... Anw what i am trying to say here don't demand if you don't give, just wait patiently. These 3 paragraphs was only my introduction to my main point.
Since i want to thank our developers and i am talking about 3 here. The guy who makes CM11 @Barracuda77777 , the guy who makes CM12 @eousphoros and the guy who makes the kernels @UpInTheAir . I noticed that these guys are either not motivated enough cause many people don't appreciate or they either don't have the tablet to test and they are waiting for people to test therefore the ROMS come out slower.
My proposal to all of you users here and owners of the T700 version is why not collect some money and buy these guys 1 device each so they mod the hell out of it and everyone can get happier? This is not a charity for them and no they did not ask me to make this thread. I am making this thread because i want to thank them as much as possible for using their spare ours to give FREE their ROMS to all of us. How about we each tip 10-20$ to buy 3 devices and send them to the guys? It's a win-win for all. They get a nice Christmas present as a thank you from all of us and you all get better working roms with a cost of 10-20$
I am willing to collect the money for the guys, so i can get nice deals for the devices. If you are interested send me a PM and i will do my best to find the fastest shipping company in my country so i can deliver the goodies to them
TIME-WASTERS AND HATERS PLEASE DON'T EVEN REPLY TO THIS THREAD. YOU ARE NOT WORTH MY TIME.
Glad for you to be on Xda! I have a T800 (10.5 inch model) and yet we also have roms and kernels from the same devs in this post. They both made a rom/kernels for both models! I'm glad that we have these devs that bring life into our tablets. I dont have any money right now ( not old enough for a job) but Im willing to test roms/ kernels for the devs and report on back for the model I own. Hopefully these devs can get what they deserve. We are lucky to already have such awesome roms and kernels and some other tablets do not even have cm11 yet. Glad that you made this post! It could help the devs get what they deserve because of what they have done to our devices and gave life to them. ?
It's not always about money or motivation or ungrateful end user.
For me, it's also about time. I have a job that involves traveling away and a family. These things are most important to me.
I already support devices i can't personally test and help with guidance here and there.
There's just not enough time in the day to do more as i have other device I'm developing for.
If anyone wishes to donate, please donate to your favorite recognized charity or XDA for hosting these forums. Without XDA we would have next to nothing.
Happy Christmas to all !
Fellow T700 Owner here.
I too would like to thank the Devs for the hard work they do and XDA for supporting the community by existing.
I am always willing to help out and test out anything and everything.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone.
Really dissapointed
So apparently people don't like to give and get. From what i understood i see 170 views and 3 replies. What about everyone else? Free ROMS with demands? anw.. i ll give this a week and wait to collect money.
Thanks again.
Sporbillis said:
So apparently people don't like to give and get. From what i understood i see 170 views and 3 replies. What about everyone else? Free ROMS with demands? anw.. i ll give this a week and wait to collect money.
Thanks again.
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No bad intent ment here at all...but - Sporbillis, you're a brand new member to XDA. I would think there would be trust issues about sending money to ANYONE let alone a new member just popping up and collecting money. So don't feel like the folks here aren't responding because they're freeloaders....it's just too easy to get ripped off....
Just sayin'
flhthemi said:
No bad intent ment here at all...but - Sporbillis, you're a brand new member to XDA. I would think there would be trust issues about sending money to ANYONE let alone a new member just popping up and collecting money. So don't feel like the folks here aren't responding because they're freeloaders....it's just too easy to get ripped off....
Just sayin'
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Yea i get that, if i was going to ripoff people i wouldn't get into the fuss of joining xda and specifically the T700 owners. i would go join some other device with much more audience. anw.
I hear the frustration. Personally, I like to see ROMs from someone who is so passionate and motivated about the device that they went out and bought one, is willing to trip the Knox counter, void warranty and possibly brick the device. That person, I hope, would love the device enough to continue with development when most everyone else has moved on to the next latest and greatest device (DanielHK for the Samsung p6800, for example). In addition, the developer has to be thick-skinned enough to read complaints (both constructive and destructive) and deal with widely varying age groups that have different levels of expectations. Even so, for non-programmer types there is much that can be done via modification of the stock ROM, remove bloat, remove Knox, write to sdcard mod, etc. There is a bit of a learning curve.
What is it about the T700 performance that is unsatisfying? Perhaps there is already a solution. New launchers can be easily installed (Nova, for example). Developer options can tweak some limited performance issues. There are build prop and .xml mods also (requires root).
TonyBigs said:
I hear the frustration. Personally, I like to see ROMs from someone who is so passionate and motivated about the device that they went out and bought one, is willing to trip the Knox counter, void warranty and possibly brick the device. That person, I hope, would love the device enough to continue with development when most everyone else has moved on to the next latest and greatest device (DanielHK for the Samsung p6800, for example). In addition, the developer has to be thick-skinned enough to read complaints (both constructive and destructive) and deal with widely varying age groups that have different levels of expectations. Even so, for non-programmer types there is much that can be done via modification of the stock ROM, remove bloat, remove Knox, write to sdcard mod, etc. There is a bit of a learning curve.
What is it about the T700 performance that is unsatisfying? Perhaps there is already a solution. New launchers can be easily installed (Nova, for example). Developer options can tweak some limited performance issues. There are build prop and .xml mods also (requires root).
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I dont get how this reply fits this thread..
Sporbillis said:
I dont get how this reply fits this thread..
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It fits because one of the developers noted in the original post replied and explained his reasons as to why he (probably) will not participate. He suggested that the donated money go elsewhere. Keep in mind that giving developers a tablet is not, necessarily, "giving back" -- for the developer it is also proposing that they work. Does the request propose giving the developers a tablet with no expectations of a ROM ever being developed for the device and not bothering them if a ROM is not forthcoming? If so, that proposal might be considered "giving back". Otherwise, the proposal is just reducing the material/monetary overhead for the developer but not reducing (or funding) the workload.
If a ROM is required, offer up a substantial bounty worth the developer's time and effort along with the materials -- then there *may* be some takers. That offer might make developers happy. Given the lack of responses at this time it appears that the offer as it stands (funded mainly by others) is not enough.
TonyBigs said:
It fits because one of the developers noted in the original post replied and explained his reasons as to why he (probably) will not participate. He suggested that the donated money go elsewhere. Keep in mind that giving developers a tablet is not, necessarily, "giving back" -- for the developer it is also proposing that they work. Does the request propose giving the developers a tablet with no expectations of a ROM ever being developed for the device and not bothering them if a ROM is not forthcoming? If so, that proposal might be considered "giving back". Otherwise, the proposal is just reducing the material/monetary overhead for the developer but not reducing (or funding) the workload.
If a ROM is required, offer up a substantial bounty worth the developer's time and effort along with the materials -- then there *may* be some takers. That offer might make developers happy. Given the lack of responses at this time it appears that the offer as it stands (funded mainly by others) is not enough.
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Now i get your point and you are right. The only purpose of this thread was to help those developers who are developing the rom and struggling without a tablet to actually have a tablet to test but most importantly for us to Say "THANK YOU" to them by giving them the tablet. If they want to work more or less after getting the tablet is their business. I was just kind enough to think about starting this thread. About upintheair i get where he comes from " NO TIME AVAILABLE " and i appreciate his honesty. Even though he has a tablet. The money portion of the thread collected can be given to him if he has a tablet and again as a thank you not as a "please work more"
I hope i was clear enough because i was in a hurry writting.
Thanks