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
Related
I would like to kick this project back off following the withdrawal of tuxhero.
After putting the feelers out and speaking with the developer responsible for the vogue android Kernel build & port I would like to Try and bring those guys onboard and am looking at a way to source them with a device. Further conversations need to take place and definitive project scope and tasks defined with much more transparent approach to the code development.
I have registered androidkernel.com and am asking for feedback from you all on how you think you would like things to pan out. My role is with Project Management and have a wealth of experience in that area, so I would be looking to appoint a team of people to work on the project and either set bounties for milestones or listen to other options and feedback on reaching our project goals.
Hopefully something of value can be achieved and I would be grateful to hear from the previous developers for any assistance available. We can create a website or use github or google code, opinions wanted and lets not rule anything out.
Sangreal
I would be glad to help out with this project. But since I dont have much time (I work 8-10hours/day as a developer) I would be glad if this would be an open development for all to contribute to.
Also it would be nice if the technical documents that Tuxhero has was posted to the developers so that they could be able to make progress faster.
Lets hope we can get android for our device.
I'm in agreement totally - open source, more transparency would be the aim.
very nice ...
but we should ask tuxhero, to share his researched information and diffs.
tuxhero actually didn't get anything done at all. He was making fake posts but in reality he wasn't doing anything.
Lets try not to get into any of that, but I agree there was very little transparency or visibility of code development.
I have asked Tuxhero if he could handover documentation and anything else to kickstart things so whether that is provided we shall see.
Sangreal
sangreal said:
I would like to kick this project back off following the withdrawal of tuxhero.
After putting the feelers out and speaking with the developer responsible for the vogue android Kernel build & port I would like to Try and bring those guys onboard and am looking at a way to source them with a device. Further conversations need to take place and definitive project scope and tasks defined with much more transparent approach to the code development.
I have registered androidkernel.com and am asking for feedback from you all on how you think you would like things to pan out. My role is with Project Management and have a wealth of experience in that area, so I would be looking to appoint a team of people to work on the project and either set bounties for milestones or listen to other options and feedback on reaching our project goals.
Hopefully something of value can be achieved and I would be grateful to hear from the previous developers for any assistance available. We can create a website or use github or google code, opinions wanted and lets not rule anything out.
Sangreal
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You should get in contact with TuxHero at least to ask about his technical documentation on the Blackstone and also if he is able to share any code. There is no harm in two teams working on this brilliant project!
So are the Vogue team really willing to try and crack the Blackstone? Do they need an actual handset?
Edit: If you actually managed to WORK WITH Tux that would be awesome
Transparacy is the clue.. there are a lot of smart heads here that may decide to contribute if the project is open for all..
good luck guys..
Good luck with the management Sangreal, its looking good!
Hope you can gather a good team.
nizzon said:
Good luck with the management Sangreal, its looking good!
Hope you can gather a good team.
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Allthough I do not use the Touch HD for the moment, I wish You all the best. I'm sure You will make it!
If TuxHero does not provide You with the documents he got, I say his intension was only to get 5 minutes of fame.
im happy this project has started, but what plan do you have in mind to get the vogue developers a blackstone? What i mean to say is that even though the blackstone is starting to get a tad dated, its still a very expensive device.
maybe you could get the donation pot from the other thread. that just about added up to the cost of a blackst... oh.
This sounds great.
let us keep this thread clean of the thing other people have done in the past.
and support the topic starter with every bit of information we could give.
i hope he could build a android kernel for the blackstone.
Just a suggestion..
Perhaps the following thing to do would be to list things what needs to be done, what is high priority and is related to what. Also if the task/s could be categorized by difficulty (read: time expected to complete).
Then after we have a list, we can start addressing task/s to people or smaller teams.
I also suggest that there would be some kind of progress bar per task (how much is completed of the task and what is the estimated time for the task to be 100% complete, what is working and what is not). Then there would be no need for people to ask questions like "when is this ready?".
The last thing I would suggest is that we make a list of people that are willing to contribute and with what (read: I would like to contribute and I have skills in ______________)
I would like to contribute with code but I have no experience of hardware coding so I guess it is better I stand aside. However, if You need a forum setup (live chat etc etc), just let me know. I do not want to step on any toes but if you need someone to help with trying to manage the project, I'm absolutely willing to give a hand.
My developing skills are close to none existent,
however any designs (web design, graphic designs and stuff like that) i can do well (or atleast other people think so)
I can also do any testing, if any of this may be useful, let me know.
- Dan
Thanks for all the suggestions so far and I will get in touch with those who have offered skills in other areas to assist where possible, I appreciate a lot of people are waiting for some value in this port and at least a fully implemented kernel.
It will take a couple of days for me to touch base with some of the developers on here and I will need to discuss things in more detail with them whilst at the same time getting the base requirements fulfilled on which to start the project off properly, after which there will be a kick off in some form.
My intention regarding getting a device for them if needed was to contribute myself as well as set up donations however bearing in mind the debacle of people donating before and nothing really progressing I am somewhat conscious of doing this properly and not in the business of obtaining something for nothing so definitely need some good suggestions on that aspect.
make a bounty
no donation, get that f**king thing out of your mind... as soon as the project is done, then open it. Not that I don't value WIP, but otherwise it will only lead to the same disasters we had in the last two attempts... (and I'm not talking about the other devices or other development attempts)
"oh yeah, why is the thing not out yet"
or
"we gave you money, where's the progress"
will be questions we always will see, even if that person didn't donate.
Let money out of the game, it spoils everything.
I personally would still love to wait for tuxhero. Not because I have donated, but simiply believe that good people is all around. BTW, it is always good to have more and more developer to join. Thanks everyone.
Apparently cash is going to be the pilot light and life cycle motivator of such a massive project. Qualified developers a project manager and loads of volunteers. The consensus is $50 (US) per person. That seems far too inexpensive if such a project is to reach a satisfactory conclusion. I agree, giving up our hard earned cash to persons unknown, for unknown effort is not a productive way to go.
What is needed is an escrow: Donations held until specific milestones area reach, as predetermined. Personally, I don't want to give, for example, $250 and some one else $50, with the expectation we each receive the same result. Then again, if specific donations are mandated then this becomes a private project. Oh boy! Back to square one.
No, here's the deal: Each person donate what they want with the donation kept secrete. Either a service or a reputable member hold the donations, perhaps in a paypal account until a bounty release is authorized.
I'm a little less than optimistic, but I am quite agreeable (and already have) to donating to this worthy effort.
Android is open. That's why I have my Samsung Galaxy S, my Nexus One and my Sapphire.
I have these phones because the open community can do better than the professionals, and I am proud to be a member of a community that has recently hacked Froyo onto the G1, Android2HD2 (and other Winmo devices), created great skins and themes, rooted almost every droid to date, hacked google navigation to work in other countries etc etc etc.
There is amazing work being done is this community.
Kingklick was able to put out a lot of ROMs which satisfied a lot of people. Contributors to Cyanogenmod (disclaimer. notably not Cyanogen himself) and others (fans and friends - disclaimer. note lack of word fanboys - of cyanogenmod, disclaimer. plus some others too) have flamed and flamed away about Kangklick (notably via twitter - I have stopped following any of those jerks that clogged up my feeds with what could've - screw that - should've been settled MUCH more privately..I followed you guys for dev news or the occasional interesting insight into your real life, not your petty bickering, but you have every right to post what you like...hence why I stopped following you all, I didn't flame you...note 'bigger man').
Rule 12 of XDArules clearly states that using the work of others must be done with permission, independent of whether it is open source or not. If this is not upheld then the post will be bought down, it does not say the user will be banned. I would understand the formality of taking the post down and requesting Kingklick reposts the ROM with due credit, but I believe - note believe...implies opinion - that moderators may have been influenced by pressure from other (high ranking, public eye) members and thus did not adhere to normal or just (I do not know if not giving creds is normally treated in this way, but you will discover I believe it shouldn't be) protacol. Kingklick broke the rules of XDA, but then again I see his banning as the least contentious issue here.
I believe that members of the XDA community in the public eye (ie with large Twitter follower base) due to their work via XDA (no matter what you say, cyanogenmod may be based at its own domain, but it still posts at XDA to maintain its public profile and feed of the massive XDA userbase, and is hence in part bound by this) have a responsibility to follow the rules of XDA on XDA rules and disputes. I do not think this is something which can be policed ('I'm banning you Wes for Trolling Kingklick...on Twitter'... not gonna work) but I think it is a moral obligation (anyone that thinks the internet is not bound by morality should take a reality check...the reason why we have open source is essentially ethics).
Do we give credit to Linus Torvalds every time we distribute linux kernels or work to do with linux? Do we give credit to those that helped him create this base? Do we give credit to Google for creating Android? HTC? Our carriers? Martin Cooper for inventing the mobile phone and cell networks? Time Berners-Lee for inventing the internet, giving rise to this forum, Google and thus the Phones/Devices we love and use? The fact is we don't give credit where due (although you may say its obscure to thank these people, they DO deserve our thanks). None of the ROM chefs/coders give all credit where due, but a lot do in part, with those directly involved. But who still thanks the original rooters?
Kingklick has been declared a copier by the jury...I haven't delved through the evidence to confirm this...but shouldn't we be much more relaxed about copying in general? All users should be open about their work with Android, but they are not. If kingklick based a build off Cyanongenmod, and gave due credit for that, he would be called unoriginal, despite his attempts to make improvements. I also believe that there should be transparency, a log of all complaints of interest and the community told in a statement from the mods why someone was banned...at least in part (keeping gory details to themselves thank you very much).
Donations are generally given by 'end-users'...noobs who can flash and maybe do some work on the builds but their contributions are limited. End users generally want user experience, and reward devs with commendation and donations. If kingklick does work on a build which satisfies more users and he hence gets donations, is that stealing donations? No. The original dev works on an open source project knowing that their work is open, but the end user can reward as he/she likes. Perhaps kingklick developed his following due to his branding...he did always use words like FAST and STABLE and SMOOTH, but Apple do the same and they're not banned from trading despite the hyperbole.
I do not doubt that a lot of devs thanks fellow devs with donations. Cyanogen is well known for donating, as is kingklick, however a lot of donations come from end users, and if kingklick replaces a few files using winrar (something which I generally contest, I believe kingklick does a lot of great work) and that satisfies more end users by being fast and stable and smooth (or perceived as being so thanks to branding) then he can get donations for that, they are a gesture of satisfaction and goodwill.
Kingklick was immoral by not giving true credit, however I believe that he could have been warned and asked to give credit once he got back from his night out (whether that excuse, or what ever his actual excuse was, was true).
I also laugh at the accusation that kingklick does not fill a niche within the 'open'/'free' community. This should not result in grudges and flame wars, whether it is true or not. Kingklick did fill a niche in my opinion: reviewers (and consumers) see vanilla android as being sterile. Hell it is sterile, and it's never going to be as successful as others if it doesn't sort this out. Cyanogenmod and other big names are based off this sterile form of Android, but they don't delve into Sense UI and other alternative skins, mainly due to preferences or copyright problems etc, not that that stops them with other things. Kingklick did work with these and he filled his niche by delivering great, fast, usable roms of these whilst others sneered at them for being inefficient coding or whatever...geeky snobbery.
Kingklick also delivered various fixes and things which other groups did not. I won't list all of these and I am sure representatives of Cyanogenmob et al will say 'we were gonna fix these issues anyways' or 'that's redundant' or 'that was patchy code', but kingklick has contributed. Obviously we have to hold ethics above output, we can not say that 'his holiness' (inteneded to mock those who believe cyanogen alone is a god, not cyanogen himself) Cyanogen's contributions to android exempt him from following conduct, but we do a great job of driving away good developers with flaming and telling tales. Perhaps you'll say kingklick was not a good developer, Drizzy, even Haykuro etc etc, but I only flashed Cyanogenmod on my Nexus once and I didn't like it for various reasons (personal preference yada yada) but I kept going back for more kingklick...whether that's perceived speed and branding etc or just satisfaction.
King's desire roms are great, but we never mobbed, trolled and banned the poor guy for not giving creds to HTC. Surely the morality of our community using software like Rosie on the Nexus is more ethically questionable than a fellow member of XDA's work, since HTC is a firm which employs people. I bought a Nexus over the Desire because I knew I could still have Sense and a bigger dev community, however the cost included in the Desire which goes to the developers of Sense is hence forgone (perhaps indeirectly, I don;t know HTC internal funding); therefore I have - and anyone who has ever flashed a Sense ROM or devved with Sense - indirectly caused loss of welfare for people who rely of developing as their source of income, tehir families, communities and economies. Surely that is less ethical than not saying thank you, but XDA has no problem with that. Perhaps it is too small to notice, but it will have an indirect impact nonetheless.
Yes kingklick should've said his please and thank you, but I think it's community hyped double standards, pretensical courtesy (not that I wouldn't give creds, it's just that pleases and thank yous are nice, but not actually useful). A wise man once said 'there is no threshold for immorality', just because kingklick did a larger 'crime' than the rest of the community in not giving his thanks out, that does not exempt the other rule breakers (ie everyone), it just means their punishment should be less severe...we choose to ignore it because it's less direct or forgotten about.
In conclusion, I think we should start a 'contributors to Android' part of XDA, added to by mods or specifically appointed members of the community (like the portal). This could be informative and could mean that forgotten about contributors could not be forgotten, but their contributions immortalised in the open community of Android. Even if the contributions become redundant, they are the foundations for the next chapter in the Android story.
Finally. www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html is a very good read..and think about what AOSP stands for (I'll give you a clue...Android Open Source Project!). Can you steal what is open? What right have others to dictate what can and cannot be distributed in the open aspects of Android code (ie the underlying OS and vanilla UI...I'm not confused with Apps). Perhaps kingklick was guilty of plagiarism? But so is anyone that claims they worked really hard in that kernel without crediting Linus and leaving a donation link to his family or favourite charitable causes. Anyone that says I've reworked the UI without giving credits to The Astonishing Tribe for the original Android concepts which all UIs are based off...
Android is closed, that's why I question this 'community'.
I am not proud to be a member of this 'community'...right now.
Ps. Cyanogenmob was originally a typo (using words like mobbed in my piece...Freudian slip on the keyboard rather than fat finger syndrome)...but I kept it in as I thought it was funny...the Cyogenmob should replace team douche IMHO!
Wow, didn't realise how long it was...out of interest has anyone actually read the whole thing !?
Yeah, I read it and agree to some extent.
While what he did was wrong, he shouldn't be banned for it. I do not know all the circumstances around it but from what I read it appears he made sense UI for the Nexus one?
I believe that cyanogen is becoming more and more powerful as a body and it is starting to strong arm others when they believe they are in the wrong. I don't understand why people should shunned as he was simply because he didn't give due credit. From seeing all these devs get the boot from websites because they didn't give all the sources for their work. This is a major hinderance from some people wanting to develop new ROMs. I mean it seems that some people want to get credit for what they did and want to have the fame of what they developed, and not just because they wanted to further the development of phones and custom ROMS.
Some people may not agree with my stance, but I just think you give people another chance for slip ups like that one and not just a boot with no questions asked.
The problem is NOT just using other people work with/without permission...
The problem is cheating the users to get more donations:
Example:
-DevA: Oh, i've been 3 nights compiling the code for you all!!!!
-Users: Ohhh, thankyou, gonna donate for your hard work!!!
-DevA: Ok, here you have the link (and the download is from DevB work with a little text-editor touch-up).
That's not the way of doing things (imho)
sorry but no. the proper way is
devA: "i took all of jubeh's work and 'optimized a text file' and uploaded it, pretty awesome right?"
you: "cool story bro"
devA: "i need a new phone"
you: "im poor but wth if you keep not making your own work and ask for donations"
devA: "ya rly"
you: "maybe i should've donated to the guy that made this all and not the one that file pushed the wifi files over... =("
wow lets have some proof of this please and i quote "Cyanogen is well known for donating, as is kingklick" we know cyan does but prove king does if not take the statement out
If King put in the same amount of effort HazzBazz put in to creating this thread/writing that ever so long first post, we wouldn't be having this conversation.
But really, did we need another thread on this topic ? I lost track but theres been atleast 10+ threads discussing this and all resulting in a lock/user under investigation.
See guys no one from cm contributors told anyone bout banning kk but yes every one was angry that he never gave credit to anyone. We told him a hundred time already to give credit. I don't know if bbannin does justice here but still he violated a lot of rules. He never released his kernel source. Never gave credits for others hard work. Bout drizzy he got banned for scamming a user. It's not winrar but winzip Get ur facts right. We r talking bout crediting the work of the community. If u do something spending day n night on expecting nothing but some respect or credit for ur work u get angry in ur language doing 1 month job n not getting paid. I would recommend u all try contributing before writing such justifications n flames n more. So kingklick was wrong n given many warnings before being banned. He was not a bad dev or something but as I told u reward for a contributor is credits. Bout donating I guess from tomorrow I'll start packaging cm froyo nightlys change the name of the Rom post it n start asking for donations. I'll even put some unicorns n ponies in it for u guys so it ismagical. N if u thing stuff can be fixed without the source u r wrong. For fixing 99% percent of stuff u need to know how to work with source n compile. Rest 1% are silver by pushing files. And again no one from cm asked any mod to ban him. It was their internal decision. There was no influence whatsoever
And one more thing. U all remember Eugene whom u all made run away from magic n dream. He even caught kingklick using his work by adding a coded name oc the Rom that clearly said Eugene n this made king cry. He started accepting he used Eugene work then more proofs came in of he just changing build.prop n posting as his
Hey guys seriously, i spent like all weekend making a site for you to help hax your phones. bandwidth is expensive, so please donate to me!!!!!!! if you like all the work i put into this. you can check my site out at: http://forum.xda-developers.com and if it helps you out, please buy my a nexus. thanks and i'm still here
enatefox said:
Hey guys seriously, i spent like all weekend making a site for you to help hax your phones. bandwidth is expensive, so please donate to me!!!!!!! if you like all the work i put into this. you can check my site out at: http://forum.xda-developers.com and if it helps you out, please buy my a nexus. thanks and i'm still here
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I lawl'd.
I don't have enough money for my family, but you can have some. Where's your donate link you hard worker?
tl;dr
enatefox said:
Hey guys seriously, i spent like all weekend making a site for you to help hax your phones. bandwidth is expensive, so please donate to me!!!!!!! if you like all the work i put into this. you can check my site out at: http://forum.xda-developers.com and if it helps you out, please buy my a nexus. thanks and i'm still here
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Damn man, that site is stupid fast
Im poor and living on the streets but i cant imagine how much work it must've been. Im donating to u
AnderWeb said:
The problem is NOT just using other people work with/without permission...
The problem is cheating the users to get more donations:
Example:
-DevA: Oh, i've been 3 nights compiling the code for you all!!!!
-Users: Ohhh, thankyou, gonna donate for your hard work!!!
-DevA: Ok, here you have the link (and the download is from DevB work with a little text-editor touch-up).
That's not the way of doing things (imho)
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Kingklick developed a fanbase. If they donated is that a crime? He didn't hold for ransom, he just released work without due credit, perhaps mostly someone else's work (havent seen evidence) and hey I put a paper out last term without my complete bibliography done because I was so excited to get it out and I was going away for a week...I finished it off over the break and put it out when I was back, funny that didn't start a war on the internet.
enatefox said:
sorry but no. the proper way is
devA: "i took all of jubeh's work and 'optimized a text file' and uploaded it, pretty awesome right?"
you: "cool story bro"
devA: "i need a new phone"
you: "im poor but wth if you keep not making your own work and ask for donations"
devA: "ya rly"
you: "maybe i should've donated to the guy that made this all and not the one that file pushed the wifi files over... =("
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I like how you're not using any form of personal attack in discussing this issue...give me an example of when kingklick asked asked for donations...theyre just appreciated. And hell did Jubreh give credit to ALL the people who helped him...Linus Torvalds etc? No, so we are all in part imperfect for not giving 'full credit'...call me anal or not.
Daneshm90 said:
If King put in the same amount of effort HazzBazz put in to creating this thread/writing that ever so long first post, we wouldn't be having this conversation.
But really, did we need another thread on this topic ? I lost track but theres been atleast 10+ threads discussing this and all resulting in a lock/user under investigation.
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None of them were philosophical...Ive just finished my second year on joint honours in Philosophy so I find it interesting...and it's not exactly an effort to pile out this when I did it all through term time anyway.
charnsingh_online said:
It's not winrar but winzip Get ur facts right.
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LOL I guess that makes me an invalid...nice
charnsingh_online said:
We r talking bout crediting the work of the community. If u do something spending day n night on expecting nothing but some respect or credit for ur work u get angry in ur language doing 1 month job n not getting paid.
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well uhhhh no its not because you expect to be paid for your job, and in fact you have legal rights ...open source developing is COMPLETELY different
charnsingh_online said:
I would recommend u all try contributing
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True yeah we should all try it...I'm hoping to do computer science post-grad if I get a first...but we dont all have the time or the expertise. I do some file pushing for myself, but I dont release it because if I did (despite getting my roms running fast and to my liking) I'd get slated by some snooty coders and fanboys.
charnsingh_online said:
before writing such justifications n flames n more.
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nb. see lack of flaming...
charnsingh_online said:
It was their internal decision. There was no influence whatsoever
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Try twitter.com and look at a lot of members of Cyanogenmob's (still sticking by that, will use that in non-derogatory circumstances, still revelling in the typo!) tweets.
And hey if kingklick can deliver to the end users then there's no use slagging him off...youre equally insulting anyone that thought his roms were good. His slide rom has so much positive feedback for instance.
JAguirre1231 said:
I lawl'd.
I don't have enough money for my family, but you can have some. Where's your donate link you hard worker?
tl;dr
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Daneshm90 said:
Damn man, that site is stupid fast
Im poor and living on the streets but i cant imagine how much work it must've been. Im donating to u
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Yay mock donators now too.
HazzBazz, since you're gonna be like this here goes:
We all know the kangers. They're everywhere from your local grocer to the bus driver. Yes, kangers live peacefully among us. What you didn't know is that the real issue, for me at least, is that when I had my old Windows phone w/Android ported on it, we would bust our asses off (look at the Vogue thread) and people would micro-manage or "release" our work as theirs. Basically we would bust our asses off for free (never have I ever asked for a donation nor have I received a single penny for my time) and these people would zip it up and host it on their own site and build a fan base.
Ok so what right? well the people that post in those threads then have bugs to report. who do they report them too? the guy that said he made the ROM-- not us. he says "lolz i don't know guys" then we fix it then he gets thanked. then, he gets the donation. it pisses me off and I never got paid. imagine the unemployed devs out there.
You can at least see my point, right?
F'sure. Hence why I dont release anything. But to you guys kangers are pests. I do not doubt that kangers should be policed. However the credit issue is something which is neglected at a small level by everyone, so no one is perfect...and the great thing about a big site like xda is that most kangers on other websites have tiny fanbases.
I respect your work because of its own credence, and plagiarism will sure as hell piss anyone off who puts time into things, but we must remember that these are donations, given freely. I think we should do more to inform the 'end users' than ban and drive away devs who deliver what some users want...albeit with some undue credit (inform..allow the end users to make informed decisions).
HazzBazz said:
Kingklick developed a fanbase. If they donated is that a crime? He didn't hold for ransom, he just released work without due credit, perhaps mostly someone else's work (havent seen evidence)
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I will stop you there as the rest of what you say is boring.
Oh and use the search button or cache on google to find(as you call it) evidence
Have a Nice Day
If you like my work, buy bill gates a stuffed penguin.
Love it yeah. Your logical, fair and anticipatory argument leaves me speechless.
'Rest of what you say is boring'...darn I'm upset and speechless...that hurts. It's like Primary school bullies here, only fails.
With regard to 'haven't seen evidence'...I wasn't saying kingklick did or did not do that or this...Im simply saying I (personally) havent seen the evidence (not because it doesn't exist or does exist), but ultimately Kingklick was found guilty of using someone else's work without saying please and thankyou, and was hence driven away from us.
I will be hated on, but I don't care. Bring the King back. I love his Desire Sense UI ROM's.
http://www.cyanogenmod.com/blog/the-state-of-cyanogenmod
The State of CyanogenMod
August 21st, 2011
kmobs
6
I’ve been reading rumors that CyanogenMod’s core philosophy is changing, that we’ve been sold, or that we’ve given up and I want to go on record saying none of this is true at all. As you may know, there are only a handful of people that can approve changes for CM but a lot of developers for it. You may have noticed that we are operating at a slightly slower pace than normal, but that’s simply because we’ve been busy and real life responsibilities come before this project. No one is getting paid to work on the product.
You have most likely become aware that Cyanogen has been hired by Samsung, as that news is traveling through the Android community like wildfire. He is not leaving the project. Samsung is aware of his involvement in CM and there are no qualms from that end. He hasn’t been active recently because he is in the process of relocating to a new city for his new job, that’s all. ChrisSoyars has been hired by Grooveshark and is currently working on projects with them. Koush is working on his DeskSMS application as well as ClockworkMod recovery. And finally, my semester is starting as are my medical school interviews.
As they have before, our insane schedules will calm eventually and we can devote more time to the project. But just because we aren’t around to approve changes doesn’t mean development has stopped or even slowed for CM. There are 40+ talented developers programming behind the scenes night and day to give you the Android distribution that you have come to know and love. On top of all of the above, we are currently in a soft feature-freeze for another 7.1 RC. (You can call it a feature slushie if you like) Because of this, we are reluctant to approve new features that may prove problematic for certain devices for the sake of the stability of the entire tree.
All I ask is that you bear with us during this hectic time.
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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?
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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?
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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.
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+ 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?
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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
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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.
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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).
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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
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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.
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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
XDA did a little interview with Ricardo Cerqueira, the CM mantainer of our phone, as wel as the one who opened the first path for ICS on the o2x. He tells how he first got into developing android and joined CM, as well as how he became the mantainer of most LG devices. There are some trivia and interesting things for us to note, and I just thought that the interview should be posted on this section too as people might have missed it in the xda front page.
Thanks to MUSTANGTIM 49 for doing the review, and of course Ricardo Cerqueira for his awesome work mantaining our beloved phone, enjoy the read!
In Android, every device has its Kung Fu master and for
anything LG, this master is CyanogenMod developer
Ricardo Cerqueira , otherwise known as XDA Recognized
Developer aremcee and cm_arcee . I know this first hand as
I am a proud owner of the LG G2x, a device that was
Ricardo’s daily driver for some 10 months.
We recently had the chance to have some one-on-one
time with Ricardo. Here is your chance to meet the man
behind the myth.
XDA : How did you first get into Android development?
Ricardo: I got into Android out of… boredom. I’ve been
working in IT since the late 90s, and eventually got to a
position that implied more meetings and presentations
than doing actually fun stuff, so I needed something to
get my fix. Android was all the rage at the time (3-
something years ago), so it was an easy choice.
XDA : What was your first Android device?
Ricardo: My first Android device was… the emulator, I
seriously played around with it for months, actual
android hardware was harder to come by where I
live. My first actual physical device was from a small
spanish company named Geeksphone, the Geeksphone
One. Crappy little device even for its time, but an excellent
learning platform, and the company was incredibly
supportive.
XDA : You list Lisbon, Portugal as your home, have you
always lived there?
Ricardo: Tough question… Yes and no. Family is
portuguese, but migrated to Canada in the 70s. They
returned to Portugal when I was 5.
XDA : Who is the “real” Ricardo Cerqueira?
Ricardo: The real me is father of one, husband of another,
and I like to think “overall regular guy” when away from
a keyboard.
XDA : What are your hobbies?
Ricardo: CM is my main hobby. Outside that, strictly
non-tech stuff, mostly gardening
XDA : Let’s talk CyanogenMod, you’ve got to tell us, where’s
the secret ”Bat Cave”?
Ricardo: No secret bat-cave, not even a secret
handshake. There’s an IRC channel where all of us hang
out, and yeah, from almost all over the world, US, of
course. Canada, Argentina, UK, Portugal, Spain, France,
Germany…Australia and I’m sure I’m forgetting
people, not to mention the translators, every continent
and a huge number of countries are represented from
that direction.
XDA : How does one become a member of the fabled
CyanogenMod team?
Ricardo: CM grows mostly from external contributors
that end up joining the party; the most frequent case is
people contributing support for new devices, but there are
also cases of people who submit so much stuff we just end
up asking them if they want to do it from the inside.
XDA: What makes up the majority of your duties at
CyanogenMod?
Ricardo: I do a bit of everything for CM, from
maintaining devices to reviewing code submissions. A lot
can be said to describe it, but boring is something it is not
XDA : How long have you been with CyanogenMod?
Ricardo: Hmm… let me check, since oct 2010, 20 months,
give or take.
XDA : What is the love affair between you and LG?
Ricardo: I do mostly LG devices because of the 2X,
actually. I just had to buy that dual-core goodness,
bought it, got CM on it, and then happened to meet an LG
guy at a conference; after nagging him about some of the
most annoying issues I had found in it, I was surprised
when LG called back.
XDA : Really? How did that go?
Ricardo: We had a nice, long conversation about what
and who CM was, they asked how they could help, so I
just threw my xmas list at them… and got a bunch of
“OK”s in return. LG has provided us with almost every
device they did since then, mostly to me, as well as a feel-
free-to-ask support channel if necessary. It has worked
out pretty well so far.
XDA : What has been your toughest project to date?
Ricardo: Most challenging project in CM… The starDOPs
(p990/p999). There were so many little nuts to crack, so
many tiny incompatibilities, that it took much longer
than usual to get everything that mattered working. For
that same reason, it’s also been my favorite. I love puzzles
XDA : I remember the morning you released “self-kang1″ for
the P990/P999.
Ricardo: True. I regret that decision, though.
XDA : Why?
Ricardo: Because it opened a can of worms that can’t be
closed again. Getting it to work needed some very ugly
workarounds that directly go against Google’s
compatibility document for ICS. An app developer
targeting ICS as a minimal version for his apps has the
right to expect some functionality to be guaranteed on a
device that claims to be ICS, that wasn’t (and isn’t) true
for ICS builds with these hacks. That’s one the main
reasons CM9 does not officially include a bunch of devices
that are “working.”
XDA : Well, you said it yourself, they were and are “hacks”.
Ricardo: Yes, and some users understand that, but a lot
don’t, and they’ll submit error reports on those apps, or
they’ll rate it badly at the Play store. This is not a
hypothetical scenario, it has happened whether we like it
or not, asked for it or not, CM’s userbase is large enough
to matter, even if you don’t count derivatives. We have a
responsibility not to cause that kind of grief to app
developers and we did. With all the mostly bull**** talk
about fragmentation, we actively contributed to a break
in the platform, no matter how small. That’s not a good
thing :X People SHOULD know these builds contain
hacks, but you’ve surely realized by now that they don’t
Thank you Ricardo for this interview. Also, on behalf of XDA
and myself, thank you to the entire CyanogenMod team for
all your hours of work and dedication.
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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