XDA's Interview with CyanogenMod Developer Ricardo Cerqueira

XDA's Interview with CyanogenMod Developer Ricardo Cerqueira - LG Optimus 2x

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.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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

Related

[A THOUGHT] Copying in an Open Community

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
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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... =("
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
nb. see lack of flaming...
charnsingh_online said:
It was their internal decision. There was no influence whatsoever
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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.

State of our development!

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

[REQUIRED BY ALL] YOU ALL BETTER READ...NOW!!!

This is gonna be a book post, so grab a drink, sit down & READ THE WHOLE THING!
Okay, I was a happily retired moderator with little time for babysitting & hand holding, but after nearly two decades of being involved with mobile development from Palm to the device & OS that really started this (Blue Angel PPC2002/PPC2003/PPC2003SE) I will be damned if I am going to let ANYONE ruin the major development repository for what is arguably the best device HTC has made to date. Yes, it was also the worst marketed & whomever handled the marketing plan for the Holiday Series should be selling used cars (Not that there's anything wrong with that, they were just obviously out of their league with the Vivid), however I digress.
I cook roms, I tweak things & talk & have help fix issues for more chef's than I can count. I don't do public releases & I stopped doing custom builds for Senior Members a long time ago. I am here purely for the advancement of mobile development, to learn & to help those that truly take the time to learn.
First things first, this is a development thread. If you are not a developer (I'm not, not really) you must realize that we are working with Alpha's, Beta's & sometime code & data from completely different device manufacturers. This means that there is a certain amount of inherent risk envolved, ALWAYS. This is evidenced & acknowledged by every single person that DECIDED to ignore the warnings issued by HTC as well as the developers here & agreed to the terms when they unlocked their device. "Unlocking your device is DANGEROUS & may VOID your warranty."
I own several devices, as do the former Dev's of this sub-forum. The reason we all are, or were, here is because we all agreed that despite HTC's fumble with the device, it is a fresh design from the rubberized slabs & plastic toys we've seen lately & the device is truly a powerhouse when configured correctly. None of us have to develop, not for the public, and for those that do, I can tell you it's not for the money nor the fame. If it was for fame the folks that left wouldn't be working from blog space & small sites. Sure, there are always glory hounds, but the Developers in Vivid are about the pursuit of perfection, nothing more. Roms are not made by a single person, many have a hand in adding or modifying portions of a rom. This means that when you slam or disrespect a chef or rom, you are telling six or more people that you do not appreciate their work. There will always be difference of opinion, but when that occurs, I expect you to handle it like a man (or woman) & use the Personal Message system this site offers. Even in those cases, I demand no less than respect & civility when communicating & you all agreed to that when you registered here at XDA. Failure to do so CAN & WILL BE GROUNDS FOR A BAN OF APPROPRIATE LENGTH.
Now, I am not a new Mod & XDA has seen fit to call me back to active duty as a Global Moderator, not a forum moderator, & that alone should tell you how frelled the vivid section has become. I am not here to power trip, don't want to ban anyone & hate cleaning useless posts from threads. But I have agreed to do just that until we can all become a happy family
I am working on getting all the dev's back here that left as well as getting some support from some of the more populated forum threads. This will be more & more important as fragmentation goes away & Android becomes more unified. ICS is a step in that direction, Android 5.0 will almost be there completely.
You may not know it yet, but HTC knows they built a great device in the Holiday line & we have already seen ICS release roms for the US AT&T variant. They went & integrated beats & discussion is taking place about a possible Sense 4.0 version for the Holiday. Not a kanged version, but a true to goodness OEM complete with source code & all. While most other devices are still working with leaked versions & test betas, we have an honest to goodness Release version of ICS with some already even getting OTA updates as well. The Vivid is one of a handful of devices that can more than adequately run the same software versions as the newly unveiled One Series, only the Vivid doesn't look like a Sensation mated with a Flyer. I know most of the developers that left, some more than others & I am working on bringing them back to the XDA table. You see, when a developer leaves we get fragmentation. We also usually lose a lot of work from other rom team members, themers, coders, tweakers, hackers, kernel builders, etc...
It would be rather simple for a good Sensation developer to get us a great recovery, provide us with pointers on things they have found with getting ICS to run smoothly as they have been working with api 15 for longer than most Vivid dev's. Unfortunately, they see the Vivid forum as the red headed bastard stepchild of XDA & right now we are. Winter is over & never before have I seen so many developers fky away like a flock heading back north. They all left or are on the fence about leaving. That says something. It's not one high maintenance chef whining & leaving. It is a whole group of Dev's & the supporting members from all over the world leaving. That tells me something is broken, seriously broken & that you as Vivid forum participants have failed the developers & the community. We are broken & need to fix ourselves & learn to police ourselves to become whole again. Do you like stock roms? are you 100% satisfied with whomevers rom you are using? I hope the answer is yes, because unless we pull together & make changes you are gonna be stuck with what you have. Sure, more cooks will emerge. But every rom team member is exceptional at certain things & without them future roms will be lacking in certain areas.
At any rate I digress. Many of you know me. I am honest & fair. I am here, & XDA agreed, as a Hail Mary, to properly support the forum & to try a save the Vivid section from failing. The number one rule here from now on is: Be courteous, respectful & honorable; and if you can't do that....I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance & furious anger those who would attempt to poison our developers & destroy my forum.
THIS IS YOUR WARNING: I am an American, so Baseball is my countries pastime, right? Just like baseball I am immediately instituting a three strikes policy. Each strike will incur penalty on a progressive scale ending with me petitioning to permanently ban you if needed. And be advise that if you post useless or negative to development threads, expect them to be deleted. Just be smart & always take a minute to think things thru before posting & doing irreparable damage. Words are like currency, you can always save them & they'll be there later if needed, but let them burn a hole in your pocket & spend them to soon...You're broke & there's no getting them back.
Now I am stickying this thread & will be leaving it open for a short while. I am doing this to give you a chance to kindly ask the dev's that left to come back & where appropriate make amends or apologize for any personal attacks that were made publicly. If you wrote it where everyone could read it, you should have the fortitude to make it right publicly. If not, then I again refer you to the Personal Message utility provided to you by XDA.

Nicely written.
+1 on bringing back the Devs

Please come back This forum wouldn't be anywhere near as inventive and informative if we didn't have our devs.
Excellent post as well

Im glad to see you stepping in and trying to help the other mods get a handle on things.
I love our phone just like most of the other users here, and have been dissapointed with the state of our forum for the last few weeks. I know the dev who left are still interested in our device as they took their roms elsewhere. Maybe with these current event they will consider coming back. We can only hope, XDA has been a great repository of roms and the help we might need with them. Lets not fragment our resources anymore then it already is.

All I can say is WOW that was greatly written!!
You know what really sucks I have been a member for what i consider to be a long time, I have flashed 1000s of rom's on I don't how many phones and read probably millions of posts! This site is my addiction I read it every day. And over the last couple of months it has just gotten horrible, ridiculous and childish on both sides the noobs and the Dev's! Now DONT GET ME WRONG!! I love and admire everyone who develops, cooks and contributes to the forum. I admit I could never deal with all crap that some noobs and some not so noobs! It is not only this forum it seems to be wide spread even down to the scamming going on at the market place!!! It has honestly made me not want to come to XDA which really sucks.I have all ways looked at XDA as one of the best community's/families i have ever worked with. Just think about how many country's, languages,class,s of life white collar,blue collar and every where in between!!! Just like any family/community you have problems and you find way's to work through the hard times and it makes you stronger so I just plead to all the Developers to try to work whit us. Even if you just post your work and then just have a question and answer sec. and let the community answer the questions. Im just saying there has to be a solution!!
Okay I'm done Rambling!! Thank You to the Mods to for trying to hold it all together!! OK now i'm done!

Wow, it's good to hear something positive around here. You might this sections savoir.

WOW! Great post, thank you very much!
I think we ALL want to run the latest and greatest Android version on the best possible ROM ever on our beloved Holiday. Most are anxious about it and, at the same time, do not want to brick their expensive phones. This being said, this shouldn't be a motivation for ANYONE to bash on the developers.
Like a lot of people, I bought my HTC Raider knowing that, at that time, the development wasn't too far. I was glad to see dev's coming in the Raider/Vivid/Holiday/Velocity family. I was friggin' happy when I saw the first ROM available for my phone! I also flashed at my own risk, knowing I was maybe scarifying my $600 CAD phone.
I, as a relatively new comer, learned from it: do not ask questions that you can easily find answers for by searching the forum. While this is not the (only) reason why so many devs have left, I would like to apologize for my few n00b questions that I may have asked previously. I learned from it and will now properly search before asking.
PLEASE, let's put these few problems aside and let's be a big nice community once again!
I hope we'll see devs back here once again!

This is my first HTC since buying my HTC Dream back in the infancy of android and I was saddened to see how things have turned on this board.
For every Samsung and LG device I have owned there has always been a thriving community of people who have an understanding and work together. However none have ever had the same feeling when I owned an HTC and was part of the community that made the Dream(G1) what it is, an icon. I so wish to be apart of something like that again with this, arguably the best HTC device, as GSLEON3 put it and would love to make it the next big thing.
I understand if the Devs don't come back but I certainly hope they do. There is a lot of work for us to get done and we really need all the amazing talented individuals we can get.

I agree and its getting old visting 20 sites
Xda should be a place where devs can release there work and the community can help each other out not bark at the devs and chase them out, a place where everyone can contribute in one way or another

come at me bro said:
I agree and its getting old visting 20 sites
Xda should be a place where devs can release there work and the community can help each other out not bark at the devs and chase them out, a place where everyone can contribute in one way or another
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think That that should become our mission statement "a place where everyone can AND SHOULD contribute in one way or another"

This is nice,
well said GSLEON3, i'm happy to see this.
i've been around xda for a while and had my share of phones and not a single one wasn't modified in a way shape or form from xda so when i picked up a vivid 2 weeks ago, it was my first choice but i'm stuck with at&t for now and besides the inspire 4g it's the only other decent phone that fits my needs and wants and regardless of how heavy it is, it's worth it. I was so disappointed and sad, mainly so sad when i saw what was happening, and by tuesday night i was like this isn't gona work for me, i'm gona be stuck with the stock gb rom or stock ics which i can't stand, i just wanted a fully functioning runnymed port but i was disappointed that the bootloader can only be unlocked through htcdev which then voids my warranty while i didn't have that issue with all the previous phones so i never hesitated to root, flash recovery and the roms of my choice. titanium and nandroid backups were like my best non human friends lol. when all this started happening and pretty much everyone was gone, i was like this isn't gona work, saw a report in the portal for a sense port to the nexus s one for ics and one for gb that had almost everything working, so i figured let me see how much i can buy a nexus s for and found a really good deal so i bought it the next day and put my vivid up for sale, i havent sold it yet, and i've been coming around to see if anything has changed, and now that it has i might reconsider and keep it, sell the nexus s and hopefully things get rolling again and we can all have the vivid the way we want. so sorry for making this even longer than i anticipated but hopefully the devs will see this and do come back, and that we do get help from other devs and new ones, i mean having phones like the hd2, mytouch 4g inspire 4g, sensation, the forums on those are filled, even the nexus s i can't keep or find a rom that i like, there r just so many options left and right so i hope that the vivid will become like that soon and yeah i dunno call me crazy or something but like i said earlier, i would be very happy if bootloader can be unlocked without htcdev that is relockable with no trace and to have a fully working gb rom with sense 3.5 like the runnymed, i couldn't be happier with the phone like that. I know there is the holiraider and it looks pretty good but i just don't know if i'm ready to take the plunge for just 1 potential rom, so hope all goes well and things develop but this has so much potential so i think i'm gona hold on to the vivid for now and see this thing come back to normal and flourish

Thank you for the breath of fresh air of logic that has come back to this forum. Sadly, I have been hesitant to visit this forum because of all the drama that has occurred as of late about the development of a better rom for our devices.
As you said, there is a reason we all purchased this device over others and it's well clear that there needs to be more work done for it by those who have the skills to do so.

Well said, although this may have been posted a little to late.
I hope that the dev here does continue, but it is looking bleak!
thanks

Very nice write up / read, I'm new to XDA and android altogether. I think this a great device and the few ROMS I've flashed had little or no issues. The work the DEV's have put into these is incredible to say the least. I would love to see all this mess cleared and bring the Vivid development back on track to unleash the full potential that it really possesses.

..

Thank you for this post. I've been more of a xda lurker for the longest time (on other phone forums) and I was happy to be getting in on the sort of ground floor of development for the vivid.. I walked away for a month to take care of some life items and I came back hoping to see some big improvements, instead there is just a load of closed dev threads. It's sad to see that few people not acting civil put things where we are today.
I really hope you can help bring some sanity back to this sector and with that sanity maybe some of the devs will be back too.

superb article. thanks for the great post. something needed to be said!i would imagine that with 4,000,000+ users were gonna have trolls, so i hope the trolls migrate to your post

Thank You!
There is yet hope, Also as stated by the OP, We all did agree to treating people with respect. This is a huge community with all levels of users from Devs and folks that build awesome things to others just starting out with their 1st smartphone (Simple rule, think before you post). This device line could become great. Please let's all do what we can to help this along.
Cheers
BR

Excellent post, I appreciate the time you took to write it, I wish reading it were a requirement of joining the XDA site. I've been flashing roms since I had an HTC Touch Diamond. I confess to being a flashaholic and my worst fear is to lose access to XDA and it's excellent developers because of the rude and immature members that I see regularly. So many don't bother to read and feel they are entitled to the work that the devs do for free.

All I can say is this is awesome, nice to see someone taking the time to help the vivid dev section.
I so miss the help and work by Pirateghost and Wild Child, and whom ever else was contributing.
While i left for only 2 weeks to setup another phone to use, i still have my raider ready and free to help debug and test as needed. Please don't allow a few bad apples to ruin it for the rest of us.
And if I may, maybe we as xda members can share in the task of keeping the forum in check.
EX: see an inappropriate post, flag it for a moderator to address it.
As for GSLEON3, thanks for taking the time to address the forum. hats off to you.

Tweet from Cyanogen himself

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

The OP5 Chill Out thread [OFF TOPIC ALWAYS ;)]

Drop in, introduce yourself, post pictures, ask dumb questions, talk, tease, chill out.
In memory of the beloved RC, @simms22 .

We've needed a thread like this ever since everyone wanted to constantly complain and nitpick (iPhone this, jelly that, etc). Cool.

Yep.
Stressed out and back home after a day's work. Was looking for a thread like this and found none. Nexus forums have a lot of these. At least when I used to own Nexus.
So thought I'd go ahead and create one cos I know we've got a lot of users.

All the negativity around here made me second guess my purchase a little and didn't have a single problem with my phone ?
Great thread!

What roms are you guys using

TheDarkDefender said:
What roms are you guys using
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Staying stock for now. No need to root for me at the moment.
I'll probably jump on lineage for a bit when Android O is released.

Isn't android O released already?

sucilrimal said:
Isn't android O released already?
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Only preview build is out

TheDarkDefender said:
What roms are you guys using
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Stock for the foreseeable future. When I finally get to the point where I unlock, I'll probably be on an OOS based ROM. OOS is just so good. Plus it'll probably take awhile for aftermarket ROMs to get the dual camera working 100%.
Sent from my ONEPLUS A5000 using Tapatalk

Should be getting my device today and I am excited. First OnePlus deviice. Hopefully no issues for me, fingers crossed. Used to be a heavy Android user, lately iPhone user. Making the decision to become a programmer has me interested in Android again and to learn java programming language. I will probably skin some things for this phone and maybe otthers if I pick up more Android phones, hell maybe build some roms in the near future.
bad night at work, mainly fixing others peoples f--- ups and sovling issues. I don't go back to work till Monday....... so fishing, gaming, messing with this phone (if no issues are found), birthday party, chilling with my daughters, school work, and swimming. Might be off work, but probably not much rest lol. :highfive:

enragedpaza said:
Should be getting my device today and I am excited. First OnePlus deviice. Hopefully no issues for me, fingers crossed. Used to be a heavy Android user, lately iPhone user. Making the decision to become a programmer has me interested in Android again and to learn java programming language. I will probably skin some things for this phone and maybe otthers if I pick up more Android phones, hell maybe build some roms in the near future.
bad night at work, mainly fixing others peoples f--- ups and sovling issues. I don't go back to work till Monday....... so fishing, gaming, messing with this phone (if no issues are found), birthday party, chilling with my daughters, school work, and swimming. Might be off work, but probably not much rest lol. :highfive:
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Nice. I think you'll love the device.
Tip: Just don't bother with the negativity in the forum, the YouTube videos and news articles. Needless to say, I've seen people *****ing about the device every which way. This phone has been great for me, I've seen zero issues so far. I got it during the preorder sale.
This is my first oneplus device too. Oneplus has come a long distance from being "just another cheap Chinese phone", when I was skeptical about it, to creating a name in the smartphone industry.
I have been a Nexus fanatic since the nexus 4 but I don't think they are worth the price tag anymore.
I kinda started out like you, interested in Android, started off learning Java, building roms for the Nexus 4 ( I was on a team that built roms called Euphoria OS, now defunct). Then, as everyone lost interest, I shifted to making money out of coding skills. Built a couple of Android apps. Now I also do Python and JavaScript mainly. Its been a fun ride, never regretted my decision.

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