Hello, I am new to this forum so I suppose I will give a brief bio. I earned an Associates Degree in Computer Science from the Community College of the Air Force while serving on Active Duty as a "Computer Programmer" from 2004 to 2010. Most of my duties on the job involved website development, server side scripting and databases. I started learning network engineering and security in the past 3 or 4 years. I'm familiar with being a go-to for fixing an unrelated FUBAR project from a random language where you have to just google the syntax and methods until you get the results your boss asked for. I've also dabbled in .NET and so on.
Anyway, it is safe to say I know enough to be dangerous or better with everything from legacy assembly code to the trends of today while I have no clear specialty of expertise at this point. I am going to use the Post 9/11 Montgomery GI Bill to go back to college. I should know what I want to do by now but it is a unique opportunity where I may as well do any one thing as another. I like to avoid personal conversations and keep it about the development on forums. I got a nook color 1.01 and came here for some tips on rooting it, now here we are. I am interested to know what particular needs there may be for an intermediate developer that has no strict preference with where I begin just as long as I don't need very expensive new hardware, unless I wanted it anyway.
So, hello and nice to meet you. I look forward to finding a way to contribute.
Canary19 said:
Hello, I am new to this forum so I suppose I will give a brief bio. I earned an Associates Degree in Computer Science from the Community College of the Air Force while serving on Active Duty as a "Computer Programmer" from 2004 to 2010. Most of my duties on the job involved website development, server side scripting and databases. I started learning network engineering and security in the past 3 or 4 years. I'm familiar with being a go-to for fixing an unrelated FUBAR project from a random language where you have to just google the syntax and methods until you get the results your boss asked for. I've also dabbled in .NET and so on.
Anyway, it is safe to say I know enough to be dangerous or better with everything from legacy assembly code to the trends of today while I have no clear specialty of expertise at this point. I am going to use the Post 9/11 Montgomery GI Bill to go back to college. I should know what I want to do by now but it is a unique opportunity where I may as well do any one thing as another. I like to avoid personal conversations and keep it about the development on forums. I got a nook color 1.01 and came here for some tips on rooting it, now here we are. I am interested to know what particular needs there may be for an intermediate developer that has no strict preference with where I begin just as long as I don't need very expensive new hardware, unless I wanted it anyway.
So, hello and nice to meet you. I look forward to finding a way to contribute.
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Click to collapse
You can start from building yourself a most powerful i7 (Ubuntu, or whatever your flavor) Linux box your $500 can buy. Generate the tool chain(s) for emulator/TI OMAP36xx SDK. Pull every piece of code published by TI for OMAP 36xx. Study all the free Android/Java/JS development books you can find, subscribe to all Android development forums and to GoogleGroups of the topics and irc channels.
Then, start building the 2.6.32, 2.6.35, 2.6.36 kernels for Android 3.x.
XDA Devs is not exactly the place where the Gurus of Android development explain and do tutelage for newbies, it's the place where they show their results. Read in my blog http://fineoils.blogspot.com about developments for NC and other tablets in condensed form, plus about stuff that is usually of no big interest here. Start from approx. Feb. 2010, this will take some time, lol.
Thank you for the outstanding advice. I have an Ubuntu machine on a first gen Phenom quad core which was starting to collect dust that would be perfect. When I get setup I need to find out what some good starter projects would be. I bet that someone here has a need that has been overlooked because the pros are busy on larger projects and I could take a stab at it. Any ideas?
aludal said:
You can start from building yourself a most powerful i7 (Ubuntu, or whatever your flavor) Linux box your $500 can buy. Generate the tool chain(s) for emulator/TI OMAP36xx SDK. Pull every piece of code published by TI for OMAP 36xx. Study all the free Android/Java/JS development books you can find, subscribe to all Android development forums and to GoogleGroups of the topics and irc channels.
Then, start building the 2.6.32, 2.6.35, 2.6.36 kernels for Android 3.x.
XDA Devs is not exactly the place where the Gurus of Android development explain and do tutelage for newbies, it's the place where they show their results. Read in my blog Can't Quote Links Yet about developments for NC and other tablets in condensed form, plus about stuff that is usually of no big interest here. Start from approx. Feb. 2010, this will take some time, lol.
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Welcome! I'm new to Android, so I can't help with anything too deep just yet (used linux exclusively for 7-8 years, so I'm catching on lol), but I can give you a list of a few common issues that people are having that I haven't really seen solved yet.
1. Touchscreen bugs out sometimes, requiring a quick trip to standby and back to fix. Happens to me regardless if I'm OCed or not.
2. System seems to randomly shut off and/or reboot for many. Has happened to me a handful of times, almost always when doing something cpu intensive, like launching Winamp or opening too many DolphinHD tabs.
3. Wifi for many people seems really flaky. Mine works fine 99% of the time.
4. Youtube doesn't like when you log in, requires a cache wipe to relaunch.
5. Screen sensitivity gets weird near the edges. There is an adb method to force a blind recalibration, but seems to have widely varying results.
6. Pull up menus on many apps ends up with white on white text making it unreadable.
I have no idea if any of those are relevant to you or if anyone else is already working on them or not. Hell, some might already be fixed in Froyo or even Eclair. Those are just a few things I see many posts about. I should mention that I'm on 1.0.1 rooted with no other tweaks. I also have a horrid case of strep throat and have been quarantined in my room alone on heavy meds for a few days, so I could be way off or babbling. Anyways, welcome to the forums and sorry for typing so much. I know I'm not nearly the novelist that that blog pimpin dude is. ;P
This is all good information and I appreciate the reply. I hope you get well soon. Strep throat and strep meds are no joke and you are extremely lucid all things considered, so don't worry one bit about that. You are running the same system that I have so please feel free to keep in touch with me about any issues, and I will let you know if I find a fix.
If you have some spare time I'd like to ask you some questions about using Linux for an exclusive PC; I keep juggling it with Windows rather than taking the time to find a fix for common petty problems like running Netflix. Right now my lazy fix for that is virtualboxing Windows.
Thanks again and feel better!
miemens said:
Welcome! I'm new to Android, so I can't help with anything too deep just yet (used linux exclusively for 7-8 years, so I'm catching on lol), but I can give you a list of a few common issues that people are having that I haven't really seen solved yet.
1. Touchscreen bugs out sometimes, requiring a quick trip to standby and back to fix. Happens to me regardless if I'm OCed or not.
2. System seems to randomly shut off and/or reboot for many. Has happened to me a handful of times, almost always when doing something cpu intensive, like launching Winamp or opening too many DolphinHD tabs.
3. Wifi for many people seems really flaky. Mine works fine 99% of the time.
4. Youtube doesn't like when you log in, requires a cache wipe to relaunch.
5. Screen sensitivity gets weird near the edges. There is an adb method to force a blind recalibration, but seems to have widely varying results.
6. Pull up menus on many apps ends up with white on white text making it unreadable.
I have no idea if any of those are relevant to you or if anyone else is already working on them or not. Hell, some might already be fixed in Froyo or even Eclair. Those are just a few things I see many posts about. I should mention that I'm on 1.0.1 rooted with no other tweaks. I also have a horrid case of strep throat and have been quarantined in my room alone on heavy meds for a few days, so I could be way off or babbling. Anyways, welcome to the forums and sorry for typing so much. I know I'm not nearly the novelist that that blog pimpin dude is. ;P
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Click to collapse
XDA did a little interview with Ricardo Cerqueira, the CM mantainer of our phone, as wel as the one who opened the first path for ICS on the o2x. He tells how he first got into developing android and joined CM, as well as how he became the mantainer of most LG devices. There are some trivia and interesting things for us to note, and I just thought that the interview should be posted on this section too as people might have missed it in the xda front page.
Thanks to MUSTANGTIM 49 for doing the review, and of course Ricardo Cerqueira for his awesome work mantaining our beloved phone, enjoy the read!
In Android, every device has its Kung Fu master and for
anything LG, this master is CyanogenMod developer
Ricardo Cerqueira , otherwise known as XDA Recognized
Developer aremcee and cm_arcee . I know this first hand as
I am a proud owner of the LG G2x, a device that was
Ricardo’s daily driver for some 10 months.
We recently had the chance to have some one-on-one
time with Ricardo. Here is your chance to meet the man
behind the myth.
XDA : How did you first get into Android development?
Ricardo: I got into Android out of… boredom. I’ve been
working in IT since the late 90s, and eventually got to a
position that implied more meetings and presentations
than doing actually fun stuff, so I needed something to
get my fix. Android was all the rage at the time (3-
something years ago), so it was an easy choice.
XDA : What was your first Android device?
Ricardo: My first Android device was… the emulator, I
seriously played around with it for months, actual
android hardware was harder to come by where I
live. My first actual physical device was from a small
spanish company named Geeksphone, the Geeksphone
One. Crappy little device even for its time, but an excellent
learning platform, and the company was incredibly
supportive.
XDA : You list Lisbon, Portugal as your home, have you
always lived there?
Ricardo: Tough question… Yes and no. Family is
portuguese, but migrated to Canada in the 70s. They
returned to Portugal when I was 5.
XDA : Who is the “real” Ricardo Cerqueira?
Ricardo: The real me is father of one, husband of another,
and I like to think “overall regular guy” when away from
a keyboard.
XDA : What are your hobbies?
Ricardo: CM is my main hobby. Outside that, strictly
non-tech stuff, mostly gardening
XDA : Let’s talk CyanogenMod, you’ve got to tell us, where’s
the secret ”Bat Cave”?
Ricardo: No secret bat-cave, not even a secret
handshake. There’s an IRC channel where all of us hang
out, and yeah, from almost all over the world, US, of
course. Canada, Argentina, UK, Portugal, Spain, France,
Germany…Australia and I’m sure I’m forgetting
people, not to mention the translators, every continent
and a huge number of countries are represented from
that direction.
XDA : How does one become a member of the fabled
CyanogenMod team?
Ricardo: CM grows mostly from external contributors
that end up joining the party; the most frequent case is
people contributing support for new devices, but there are
also cases of people who submit so much stuff we just end
up asking them if they want to do it from the inside.
XDA: What makes up the majority of your duties at
CyanogenMod?
Ricardo: I do a bit of everything for CM, from
maintaining devices to reviewing code submissions. A lot
can be said to describe it, but boring is something it is not
XDA : How long have you been with CyanogenMod?
Ricardo: Hmm… let me check, since oct 2010, 20 months,
give or take.
XDA : What is the love affair between you and LG?
Ricardo: I do mostly LG devices because of the 2X,
actually. I just had to buy that dual-core goodness,
bought it, got CM on it, and then happened to meet an LG
guy at a conference; after nagging him about some of the
most annoying issues I had found in it, I was surprised
when LG called back.
XDA : Really? How did that go?
Ricardo: We had a nice, long conversation about what
and who CM was, they asked how they could help, so I
just threw my xmas list at them… and got a bunch of
“OK”s in return. LG has provided us with almost every
device they did since then, mostly to me, as well as a feel-
free-to-ask support channel if necessary. It has worked
out pretty well so far.
XDA : What has been your toughest project to date?
Ricardo: Most challenging project in CM… The starDOPs
(p990/p999). There were so many little nuts to crack, so
many tiny incompatibilities, that it took much longer
than usual to get everything that mattered working. For
that same reason, it’s also been my favorite. I love puzzles
XDA : I remember the morning you released “self-kang1″ for
the P990/P999.
Ricardo: True. I regret that decision, though.
XDA : Why?
Ricardo: Because it opened a can of worms that can’t be
closed again. Getting it to work needed some very ugly
workarounds that directly go against Google’s
compatibility document for ICS. An app developer
targeting ICS as a minimal version for his apps has the
right to expect some functionality to be guaranteed on a
device that claims to be ICS, that wasn’t (and isn’t) true
for ICS builds with these hacks. That’s one the main
reasons CM9 does not officially include a bunch of devices
that are “working.”
XDA : Well, you said it yourself, they were and are “hacks”.
Ricardo: Yes, and some users understand that, but a lot
don’t, and they’ll submit error reports on those apps, or
they’ll rate it badly at the Play store. This is not a
hypothetical scenario, it has happened whether we like it
or not, asked for it or not, CM’s userbase is large enough
to matter, even if you don’t count derivatives. We have a
responsibility not to cause that kind of grief to app
developers and we did. With all the mostly bull**** talk
about fragmentation, we actively contributed to a break
in the platform, no matter how small. That’s not a good
thing :X People SHOULD know these builds contain
hacks, but you’ve surely realized by now that they don’t
Thank you Ricardo for this interview. Also, on behalf of XDA
and myself, thank you to the entire CyanogenMod team for
all your hours of work and dedication.
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Original post: http://www.xda-developers.com/android/interview-with-cyanogenmod-developer-ricardo-cerqueira/
PS: Sorry if the format is a little bit messy, I'm posting this from a tablet. Will get things tidier when I get to a PC.
How can I miss this interview?
He answered it like a bloody genius!
Thanks for pointing out mate salam
This decision may come as a surprise to some of our readers, particularly given the sales figures posted by Samsung for recent product launches such as the flagship Galaxy S3 and Note II. Nonetheless, this year, the XDA Developers’ OEM of the Year is Sony Mobile.
The relationship between XDA and Sony has been frosty in the past, thanks in part to the locking of bootloaders, subsequent lack of updates, and Sony’s efforts in early 2011 to target open source community “developers” with lawsuits in other product categories (such as the Playstation 3). This resulted in many top developers turning a blind eye to anything and everything Sony. They eventually dropped the suit later on in the year, but that was no consolation to the community.
Despite these events, a change was signaled in September of 2011, when Sony’s Head of Developer Relations posted a notice to the community that they supported independent Android OS developers. Then in early 2012, Sony Mobile released the Sony Xperia S, the first Sony Android phone to be released with flagship-level specs. Soon after, Sony signaled a change in their stance towards open source development by releasing a guide for unlocking the bootloader on the Xperia S and then releasing not only the kernel source code but also a guide for building it.
In just over 12 months, they had gone from suing a developer that hacked the bootloader on his own purchased device, to providing the tools to unlock the bootloader on a high-quality device and giving users the instructions to build the kernel source. No other manufacturer had done that, nor have any others to date. That is full-on GPLv2 compliance like we’ve never seen before at XDA.
Here is a list of the other steps they took towards openness in the community in 2012:
In March Sony officially released a public beta of ICS for the Xperia Play when no other manufacturer was officially releasing betas.
In April Sony released ICS for their entire 2011 line of devices, becoming the first manufacturer to do so.
Their Sony Developer Relations team announced a program to allow developers to borrow devices for application testing.
In August the Sony Xperia S became the first non-Nexus device (not counting the Motorola Xoom) to be included in the AOSP device tree as an experimental device. They then followed that up by releasing the AOSP binaries for the Xperia S.
Later in August Sony began open-sourcing their own code for the Dynamic Android Sensor Hardware Abstraction Layer (DASH for short) to the community.
In October they joined XDA at the Big Android BBQ to discuss their plans for further open source interaction in the community.
They announced they would be taking the lead for the AOSP source for the Xperia S and manage it themselves in their own github, and begin merging in Android 4.2.
They continue to utilize their highly active development blog where their developer team discusses their views on Android, and announce preview “Alpha” and “Beta” builds of updated device firmware and seek user feedback.
CyanogenMod custom firmware distribution is maintained for several Sony devices by a number of Sony Mobile developers, in their own time.
Given the recent trend by companies such as Samsung to often overlook the custom ROM developer community (in favor of application developers), it is refreshing to see Sony going far beyond what is required to improve the experience of their devices for anyone interested in developing for the platform. Given their contributions to the Android community-at-large in 2012 alone, and their complete turn around in less than 16 months, Sony is XDA’s OEM of the Year for 2012!
If you’re looking for a couple great options for Sony devices, we recommend the Xperia S or the Xperia T.
Now, what we really want to hear is YOUR top OEM for 2012. Vote below to let us know!
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The link
The only thing holding me back from this device is the locked boot loader:crying:
Pretty sure one major reason why LG won't make the bootloader open is the exclusive game and software contracts they have on this phone with certain service providers in Asia.
The funny thing about Sony, and other companies, is that they will only release a bootloader like this if someone is not willing to pay to keep it closed. So the praise for Sony here is a bit misplaced, to put it like that. Generally rooted phones receive a limited amount of support afterwards, simply because they believe they don't earn any money on them afterwards.
I.e., the only reason Sony does something like this isn't because they will design their own software shell to operate with other shells. Instead it's for two reasons:
1. They're 100% confident that rooted shells are inferior to theirs, and is locked down in certain ways that makes it useless as far as replacing the original one.
2. They realize that an extremely small number of people actually do root their phones or use a custom kernel.
Now, if they came out and said: "We have a sales philsophy that isn't tied to the locked down shell, and instead one that is focused on the device and the features of the device only. While the software we have can be used interchangeably with other shells, because of the way it's designed from the bottom up to do so - and we encourage the community to create their variants of the surrounding software package". If they did that, they'd deserve praise.
Something like this - well, that's about the same level as praising a mugger for telling you where he's going to fence your stuff.
UIQrules said:
Pretty sure one major reason why LG won't make the bootloader open is the exclusive game and software contracts they have on this phone with certain service providers in Asia.
The funny thing about Sony, and other companies, is that they will only release a bootloader like this if someone is not willing to pay to keep it closed. So the praise for Sony here is a bit misplaced, to put it like that. Generally rooted phones receive a limited amount of support afterwards, simply because they believe they don't earn any money on them afterwards.
I.e., the only reason Sony does something like this isn't because they will design their own software shell to operate with other shells. Instead it's for two reasons:
1. They're 100% confident that rooted shells are inferior to theirs, and is locked down in certain ways that makes it useless as far as replacing the original one.
2. They realize that an extremely small number of people actually do root their phones or use a custom kernel.
Now, if they came out and said: "We have a sales philsophy that isn't tied to the locked down shell, and instead one that is focused on the device and the features of the device only. While the software we have can be used interchangeably with other shells, because of the way it's designed from the bottom up to do so - and we encourage the community to create their variants of the surrounding software package". If they did that, they'd deserve praise.
Something like this - well, that's about the same level as praising a mugger for telling you where he's going to fence your stuff.
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Click to collapse
Well you are actually misguided on this one. Sony's Developer Relations team does not want any of their device's bootloader locked - it's the carriers who desire them locked. At the executive level, Sony has to deal with misperception that unlocked bootloader == rooted phone. They are slowly changing that mindset, but it's an uphill battle. There are a large number of Sony devices capable of being unlocked, and they go to great lengths to make sure they help the user do it.
What will always be a struggle is the carrier's and their hold on the industry. Once that hold gets loosened, then we'll see a lot more positive things.
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