Cyanogen Mod Goes Commercial To Make "Available On Everything, To Everyone" 230
The popular Cyanogen Mod distribution of the Android Open Source Project dropped a bombshell today: the founding members have formed a corporation (currently with a team of seventeen hackers) to work on the project with the founder of Boost Mobile as the CEO. Quoting the announcement: "You have probably seen the pace of development pick up drastically over the past few months. More devices supported, bigger projects such as CM Account, Privacy Guard, Voice+, a new version of Superuser, and secure messaging. We vastly improved our infrastructure. We’re doing more bug fixes, creating more features, and improving our communication. We think that the time has come for your mobile device to truly be yours again, and we want to bring that idea to everybody. ... So what does this all mean for the community? The first thing I wanted to do when I realized we were actually doing this, was tell everyone possible. But when starting a company, you have to think about the larger picture. This meant not announcing until the time was right, our house was in order and we would have something to show. I have seen open source projects come and go, some being bought out and closed, others stagnating and falling by the wayside. I don’t want to see this happen with CM."
ugh! too mainstream! (Score:5, Funny)
cyanogenmod is OVER!
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They may have picked up the pace, but they also dropped all the devices I own. So for me, this is a non-issue.
I am tempted by the Nexus because of the high resolution screen, but I really want an SD card slot, and dual SIM if possible. Anything like that supported by CM?
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I've got an S3, but it's only got the one SIM card. It's easily accessible though.
What Cyanogenmod is missing is Bluetooth support. They have the basic functions down, but they redid the stack to be technically correct and now it doesn't work. They're waiting for Google to release some future API in a supposedly-upcoming release.
Also, GTA: Vice City doesn't work. But that's a minor thing.
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I'm using it now.
Audio goes through with no problems, it's the data accompanying the audio that doesn't go through. The track info doesn't show up on my stereo, although it did before I flashed to CM. It's a known problem, but it's waiting for the Google API to update (presumably in Android 4.3) for implementation.
Re:ugh! too mainstream! (Score:5, Informative)
Bluetooth low energy [wikipedia.org] doesn't work on the Samsung Galaxy line because Samsung won't release the hardware specs on it. If you want to make use of BLE then you need to run a TouchWiz ROM. All the other standard Bluetooth seem to work just fine.
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That is quite dick-ish. Maybe they really are copying Apple.
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Didn't the Captivate have more RAM?
(Fellow Fascinate owner here)
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It depends. It could go either way.
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thank you for this insightful comment. I feel so much better now.
Re:ugh! too mainstream! (Score:4, Interesting)
There will obviously be way more cyanogenmod now, but the question is :
Can we trust them now that they're a corporation?
How many developers are Americans subject to National Security Letters?
One question (Score:5, Interesting)
I have only one question: How will they make money? That pretty much determines if this is a good or a bad thing.
Good long term support = $$$ (Score:5, Informative)
I have installed Cyanogenmod on a couple of devices that the phone maker stopped supporting long ago. I get all the new yummy android stuff without buying a new phone.
I can see this as a large selling point for companies who want to keep their devices up to date with security patches.
CM upgrades rock (Score:5, Informative)
Let me also point out that Cyanogenmod has now built in the ability to upgrade/update by a few simple clicks on your phone's interface. It really rocks.
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Maybe. My experience is that cell phones tend to break down after a few years of use, either from batteries that can't be replaced or buttons and touchscreens that become less responsive. Not to mention system specs that get outdated.
More importantly, any long term support contract would have to be quite a bit cheaper than the cost of simply getting a new phone in the first place, to make much sense for most people. With many new phones easily available for one or two hundred dollars (with contract of co
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I have had android devices from carriers with little to no support on them. They are locked and push out the updates themselves. These updates never see my phone. I've also had devices like my xoom that received the first major update in Canada months after the update was released in the states. If you could manage your own updates you could also hold off on device breaking updates until they have been properly tested.
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Then again, I can't understand how the phone makers make money off of their versions of android. I doubt anyone has ever made their decision to buy a samsung because "It has touchwiz!!!" Most consumers don't seem to take updates they're offered in the first place, so I can't really see it as a good incentive to buy a new phone. Offering their own versions seems to just make the
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I wish they supported Apple devices. No, seriously, I'm not even kidding. I so wish I could dump iOS on my iphone and install CM instead...
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I'd quite easily pay them a subscription fee to get updates. I'm back on a Nexus device, but I miss a lot of the CM features. It really is quite amazing.
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That would be great, but it would likely limit you to Nexus devices. While Cyanogenmod gets away with it for now, for a pay for product they could not continue to redistribute binaries for closed hardware that vendors do not license that way.
Re:One question (Score:5, Interesting)
I suspect that smaller companies like Blu Products (http://bluproducts.com/) could end up offloading software development and support for their phones under contract. Likewise they could offer services to enterprise customers to unify the android systems that they support on the "bring your own device" plans, so as to simplify support as well. I downloaded the newest CM daily today for the HTC One, and it prompted to link to the Cyanogenmod account, and once linked, it provided services such as remote wiping, finding my phone, etc. As such, if you have one unified version of android across multiple devices, it opens the door for providing unified services to simplify enterprise management. My worry is that companies like Samsung will not like this model since it levels the playing field between them and other hardware makers (the software is the same now) and they will refuse to release hardware level drivers to enable various features. That said, it opens the door to hardware/firmware only phone releases from small companies and open the market for rapid advancement.
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The first one sounds reasonable the second does not.
Most phones need binary drivers that cyanogenmod would not be licensed to distribute. For now they get away with it, but that won't last once they are making money.
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Usually the phone makers are releasing the binary blobs that allow CM and other custom Android versions to run. As long as they continue to do so in a way that allows the binary blobs to be redistributed, there won't be an issue. If they attempt to restrict this use however, it will result in a phone basically being blacklisted by anybody that does anything outside of the ordinary, and personally, I would not buy the phone, or advise others to as well.
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Since when?
Even the Nexus 4 had delays getting binaries out. I believe CM is just pulling them off the hardware and hoping no one cares.
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Once this is a money making enterprise Samsung, HTC and LG will care. Copying it off the device will be considered copyright infringement.
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HTC at least: http://blog.htc.com/2013/01/continued-support-for-the-developer-community/
I suspect that the formalizing of CM as a company may help resolve some of these issues however, as they can push the component makers to provide the drivers to THEM. It is somewhat the same situation as with the phone makers, where they get the drivers from the component makers, and include them in their build. CM could do the same, and release the binary drivers for the CM builds on third party phones for CM builds.
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This is really interesting in that lots of large name manufacturers have their own semi-customer versions of Android. Lots of them are just custom skins, but quite a few also alter the Android base some.
Now this is a different tact in it seems that Boost Mobile will have it's own version of Android. So, a carrier-specific version, which is very interesting. I think that this is a first in the Android world, and something that seemed somewhat inevitable. Definitely a way to potentially differentiate yours
I can think of one way (Score:3)
There is a very easy way they can make money. Via their auto update stream.
CM now supports auto update. It is a killer feature, but one they could easily charge for. IE you want to update to the latest CM over the air? Pay $10. Else, download it yourself and flash it yourself.
Another way, they could change you to download their pre-built binary images. Maybe only the images for the Nexus are free, and ones for other phones are $5 a download.
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I would expect they follow the model many other open source companies have done (deviations from this would probably raise at least one of my eyebrows): services and support.
I've run CM on most of my Android devices at some point. I stay with the vanilla carrier OS for a bit, but it inevitably starts to annoy me, and generally ceases to get updated after a year or two.
The dev community has done a terrific job of making it easy to root and install CM on a wide variety of phones, but everything still comes w
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I doubt you can build a corporation that relies on the various hacks that allow installation of the replacement recoveries and root.
Turning from hack into viable business (Score:5, Interesting)
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> Cydia started as an alternative to the App Store
Actually, didn't it pre-date the app store?
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Yes. Cydia had a working system on end-user devices for distributing third-party applications on 1st-gen iPhones and iPod Touch months before Apple did.
At the time, Apple was championing the notion that apps weren't even needed; all anyone really needed was HTML5 and a web site to serve it to end-users.
We all see how well that concept went....
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It's especially amazing since Apple is constantly trying to put them out of business.
Good (Score:3)
I hope they reap the benefits of all the hard work they've been putting into pushing phone technology forward.
Re:Good (Score:5, Interesting)
Yup.
1. create something cool users want
2. form corporation
2a. sellout said customers
3. PROFIT !!@#!@#!@!!!
While I HOPE this doesn't happen to CM the above has proven accurate to many time to be dismissed
Boosting Boost Mobile (Score:2)
How will this affect alternatives? (Score:4, Interesting)
AOKP[1] is based on the CM tree. I wonder if they will still have access to the code. I'm really not in the mood for more corporate interest BS on my device.
[1] http://www.androidbeat.com/2013/05/cyanogenmod-vs-aokp/ [androidbeat.com]
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If not they would switch to AOSP. This is the danger with the apache license. They can take their ball and go home.
Support Atrix and I'm in (Score:2)
No doubt I would by buy it if they could get the latest version of Android running on my Atrix. Saves me from buying another phone.
Goals (Score:2)
I don't see 'not start charging' in their list.
Should we expect to have to pay for this soon? If so, they better be producing something that is rock solid and offer actual support.
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Goal is to be bought by some bigger corp for a rediculous amount of money.
hold the phone (Score:5, Interesting)
Since the majority of supported phones didn't have their support implemented by the cyanogen mod team (They only built support for the most popular phones) how on earth can they claim the project is theirs to go public with? There were literally thousands of people that rebuilt packages and redesigned interfaces so they could get it onto other phones. I even created a release for my phone a few years ago because Cyanogen didn't support it. This seems shady to me. They were already making significant money from their apps, as was made clear when one of their team went rouge last year, why now? I guess we'll have to wait and see, but I don't think this is a good turn of events at all.
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Is Cyanogen mode claiming the code is "theirs" in a some way different from how RedHat might claim linux is theirs?
Obligatory... (Score:2)
with the founder of Boost Mobile as the CEO
WHERE YOU AT, DOG? The whole city's behind you!
Will it remain open source and free-as-in-speech? (Score:2)
One point I haven't seen covered: Will it remain open source and free-as-in-speech, or are they making it proprietary?
Re:Will it remain open source and free-as-in-speec (Score:5, Informative)
To answer some of my own question, this is their response in their Reddit AMA [reddit.com]:
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We are in the process of setting up a nonprofit to foster the open source side.
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There are no plans to close the source for things such as device support and work done in the community. We do need to build value for the company, and there are various things we are working on that require significant time and capital to develop- these may be proprietary but we won't pervert/close the core OS for this to happen.
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Our strength is that we have a strong open source community behind us.
The core of the project (hardware support, community contributions, etc) will always remain open source. But obviously, as a company that has financial needs, employees to pay, Cooper treats to buy, and Cyanogen-babies to feed, we will need to make careful decisions about what we open source, and what may become proprietary.
Re: Will it remain open source and free-as-in-spee (Score:2)
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So, to summarise... not really?
The parts that will allow contributors to port to new devices will (presumably because (a) parts of that are GPL anyway, and (b) because there is a benefit to CM to having contributors doing the work of porting to new devices).
Work done by contributors will remain open source (but derivatives of that, who knows)
Apart from that: stuff will be made closed source as required to get teh monies.
That isn't to say money is the primary motivation, just that from the posts on Reddit it
HP Touchpad saved by Cyanogenmod (Score:2)
I bought a bunch of HP Touchpads during the firesale. It was a great tablet, just no OS support after HP dumped them and the WebOS developers. Cyanogenmod, while not supporting all of the hardware (i.e. video camera), enabled Android and access to all of the apps, games, etc. to an abandoned platform. I gave a number of Touchpads away as Christmas gifts that year.
I've since moved on to the Asus Transformer Pad Infinity. ASUS provides a utility to unlock their devices. I am running CROMI-X (a slightly m
I don't like it (Score:4, Insightful)
With this move, they are now beholden to shareholders (i.e. the Venture Capitalists) and profit is the #1 priority, despite the flowery, rainbow-colored unicorn fantasy they are promoting.
I'd bet dollars to donuts that CM is going to become payware and possibly even supported by ads integrated directly into the O/S, with underlying information snooping software that gives them your private info so they can sell it to marketing firms.
So, no, I don't like it one bit.
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You and the 4 or the 5 ppl below you are morons.
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True. I don't usually subscribe to the "women are persecuted/abused/marginalized in IT" meme but this kind of crap gives me pause.
Re:they have a girl!!!!!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Stop this.
Girls code. Girls hack. This is not news, and contributes to an incorrect societal marginalization of people sans Y chromosome in jobs like this.
What's more, you imply a team like this would only have such a woman on their payroll as a sex object.
You would probably say, indignantly "it was just a joke, all in fun!" Joking in this way is not OK. It needs to be shut down and shunned by society, and I'm calling it out everywhere I see it.
I'm a member of the Y-chromosome club, and I condemn alen's message.
Re:they have a girl!!!!!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Stop this.
Girls code. Girls hack. This is not news, and contributes to an incorrect societal marginalization of people sans Y chromosome in jobs like this.
What's more, you imply a team like this would only have such a woman on their payroll as a sex object.
You would probably say, indignantly "it was just a joke, all in fun!" Joking in this way is not OK. It needs to be shut down and shunned by society, and I'm calling it out everywhere I see it.
I'm a member of the Y-chromosome club, and I condemn alen's message.
This cannot be repeated enough.
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9/10. Good rant and you hit all the "talking points" nicely. Well done.
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Personally I think it's because the mixture of sleaze and puritanism in the USA has fucked up so many people in the head. Men expect a pure example of one of the three of Virgin/Mother/Whore instead of a real girl and who knows what the American women expect because many are conditioned to play roles instead of being real girls. I could go on but you may want to look at other Western nations without so high a divorce rate to get an idea of where things are go
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Protip: replying with adhominem attacks doesn't do much for your position. In fact it re-verifies to me that the whole feminist house of cards is driven by instinct driven emotion instead of fact and reason...from both genders.
It takes two to tango. Every step of the way, from first meet to old age... or 10th year anniversary divorce court date. As long as the neocon white knights and liberal manginas are still willing to 'man up' by continuing to shield women from reality, they will never be equal in me
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Joking in this way is not OK.
There is no such thing as a joke that is not OK. People like you get offended, but that's because you don't understand the power of a joke. You're not going to change the mind of actual misogynists by telling them you're offended about their beliefs. But when society makes fun of their beliefs by making a joke like that, and everyone laughs instead of seriously agreeing, that means we're moving past it. We're showing those people their arguments have been shot down so many times they're not even worth i
Re:they have a girl!!!!!!! (Score:4, Insightful)
> There is no such thing as a joke that is not OK.
The punchline needs to bring attention to the problem and not further victimize the subject. This "joke" had no point, and was simply mocking women. That makes it not OK. Sexist jokes are ok when we are laughing at the asshole, not the victim. This "joke" suggested all a women can do is stand in a booth. If the joke were rephrased to show the idiocy of males in technology, then it'd be different. But that takes thought and actual wit, of which the original joker had none.
Re:they have a girl!!!!!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
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Joking in this way is not OK.
There is no such thing as a joke that is not OK.
LateArthurDent (1403947) rapes children
LateArthurDent placed explosives on a plane
LateArthurDent set a kitten on fire
LateArthurDent rapes more children
LateArthurDent has orgies in the horse pen, with the horses
LateArthurDent has no genitals
LateArthurDent steals from family, friends, and jobs
LateArthurDent is now linked in Google to all the above terms, and is now on multiple NSA lists.
Have fun getting groped at the airport, followed by being raped in prison LateArthurDent!
Anonymous Coward is a libeler! I'm taking you to court.
(ps, just kidding!)
Damn. That's like one of those weasel ways of getting away with libel, like adding, "in my opinion" to a sentence, isn't it. All right, you win this round.
Re:they have a girl!!!!!!! (Score:4, Funny)
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Hey, grow a pair...and enjoy the joke.
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Girls code. Girls hack.
Yes, but does THIS girl do any of that?
Oh wait, I just saw the pic and realized she's Asian, so she probably did actually earn her place.
*Brilliant*. You have replaced sexism with racism. Well fucking done.
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So you're saying she didn't earn her place? Fucking racist!
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It's a little surpising she manged to do all that, given how small she is.
Heightism.
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I'm sure I'll get modded to oblivion for speaking out against the current PC fad
Really? Here on slashdot, the bastion of conservative tech news, you'll be downvoted? Psshh.
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COBOL was designed by a woman. Spanning-tree protocol was invented by a woman. This thread is why I use a guy's name to play WoW and Halo.
Re:they have a girl!!!!!!! (Score:5, Funny)
COBOL was designed by a woman.
Not exactly helping your case there.
Re:they have a girl!!!!!!! (Score:5, Funny)
COBOL was designed by a woman.
Not exactly helping your case there.
Women can hate humanity just as well as men can.
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Women can hate humanity just as well as men can.
I see you've met the ex?
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You left yourself wide open there.
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Who cares? I mean, they have a dog and a circus clown too, and nobody thought to ask questions about how they contribute...
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Only because it's obvious: the dog does PR and the clown is Management.
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Crusty also seems to be on the team.
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Yeah! Let's also flog them in Times Square and have them thrown in jail too!
Or instead of being a bootlicking authoritarian who can't handle free speech, you simply dispute them with facts rather than trying to shut them out. Censorship doesn't change minds. It simply means those thoughts remain but are simply hidden away behind feigned politeness.
Re:they have a girl!!!!!!! (Score:4, Insightful)
Commenters on Slashdot should not be able to hide behind "Anonymous Coward" to post comments like this. This kind of comment should be a bannable offense.
It's a stupid comment posted by an idiot, but what you advocate, simply because the AC's statement offended you, is much, much worse.
If you don't like it, browse comments at > +2, leave here and go to a forum that censors, or better yet, put on your big boy/girl pants and ignore it instead of trying to control everyone else's experience on /. just because you are offended.
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Get back on your pole and dance, girl. We don't pay you to post on Salshdot!
And when you're done with that, Steve's waitin' in back. Now git!
No need to hide. You Sir, are far more despicable than the person to whom you responded.
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Pretty much. I put it on my phone because it's free and awesome, I'm curious how they're going to make any money on this. My new phone is going to set me back $250 and they're then wanting to have some of my money for the OS? Or they'll want to do something with ads, which isn't going to be acceptable either. Or perhaps an alternate app shop that I won't use because it's going to be competing with Play.
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Really? You would not pay $5? You won't try another app store?
A new phone costs more than $250.
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Depends which phone you're talking about and yes, you can get a decent phone for that kind of money without a contract. Paying for an OS that fixes what the carrier and Google should have gotten right in the first place isn't something that I view as reasonable.
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Name one decent off contract phone for less than that.
If the OS needs replaced why are you buying that device?
Either you value CM or not. What you run it on has no bearing on this.
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Name one decent off contract phone for less than [$250].
The Nexus 4 [google.com]. It may be a little old now, but it's still decent. $199.
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Nexus 4 was $250, I'm not sure if you can still get them and I'm guessing the upcoming Nexus 5 or whatever they're going to call it is going to be similarly priced before too long. The number of features that you really need and aren't affordable has come down a lot over the years. Screens can't get too much larger without no longer fitting in my pocket and the touch screens are pretty good.
And yes, it definitely does have a bearing on this. Back when it was free, they just had to justify it being good enou
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The main reason I see people choosing a different ROM such as CM is to change the functionality of their device; in most cases, to expand the functionality.
Why is it unreasonable to contribute financially towards the work of a modder for a ROM which contains features which weren't advertised as part of the standard build of the device you own?
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You do realize paying each other is how our collective society works right? This joker would not survive in a commune, he would not contribute money or work.
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Ah sorry, I misunderstood you.
He does seem the type.
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Not going to happen.
ARM lacks anything like PCI for addressing hardware. This means you have to know what hardware you have before you boot.
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well jolla just announced that sailfish is capable on running on hw as long as it can boot android(I presume that means that as long as hw has android drivers it can run sailfish).
it might be that android compatibility is going to be really the thing in that field, alternative os developers are doing their thing so that they can use android hw, since that hw is so common.
still no pc but still..
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Even hardware that runs android is not all the same. You need drivers, you need kernel sources, you need to know about the bootloader and the recovery system.
None of that stuff is standardized. You could make jolla run on any android phone, but you will need all that stuff to make it happen.
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The only part of AOSP that is GPL is the kernel. The rest is APLv2.