Cyanogen Inc. Reportedly Fires OS Development Arm, Switches To Apps (arstechnica.com) 124
An anonymous reader writes: Android Police is reporting that the Android software company Cyanogen Inc. will be laying off 20 percent of its workforce, and will transition from OS development to applications. The Android Police report says "roughly 30 out of the 136 people Cyanogen Inc. employs" are being cut, and that the layoffs "most heavily impact the open source arm" of the company. Android Police goes on to say that CyanogenMod development by Cyanogen Inc "may be eliminated entirely." Ars Technica notes the differences between each "Cyanogen" branding. Specifically, CyanogenMod is a "free, open source, OS heavily based on Android and compatible with hundreds of devices," while Cyanogen Inc. is "a for-profit company that aims to sell Cyanogen OS to OEMs." It appears that many of the core CyanogenMod developers will no longer be paid to work on CyanogenMod, though the community is still free to develop the software." Android Police details the firing process in their report: "Layoffs reportedly came after a long executive retreat for the company's leaders and were conducted with no advanced notice. Employees who were not let go were told not to show up to work today. Those who did show up were the unlucky ones: they had generic human resources meetings rather ominously added to their calendars last night. So, everyone who arrived at Cyanogen Inc. in Seattle this morning did so to lose their job (aside from those conducting the layoffs)." Early last year, Microsoft invested in a roughly $70 million round of equity financing for the then-startup Cyanogen Inc. Not too long before that, Google tried to acquire Cyanogen Inc., but the company turned down Google's offer to seek funding from investors and major tech companies at a valuation of around $1 billion. Cyanogen Inc. CEO Kirt McMaster once said the company was "attempting to take Android away from Google" and that it was "putting a bullet through Google's head."
UPDATE 7/25/16: Cyanogen CEO and cofounder Kirt McMaster took to Twitter to dispel some of the rumors, tweeting: "Cyanogen NOT pivoting to apps. We are an OS company and our mission of creating an OPEN ANDROID stands. FALSE reporting was outstanding."
UPDATE 7/25/16: Cyanogen CEO and cofounder Kirt McMaster took to Twitter to dispel some of the rumors, tweeting: "Cyanogen NOT pivoting to apps. We are an OS company and our mission of creating an OPEN ANDROID stands. FALSE reporting was outstanding."
Applications? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Cyanogen Inc is turning into just another Wall Street hedge fund like Uber and Pokemon, whose main business will be in the derivatives markets. "Android applications" is irrelevant to the portfolio. Lots of weird shit happening in the markets. I wonder if if all this "capitalization" is nothing a setup for a big crash (correction, amirite?) this fall. Might be a good idea to cash out by the end of August, and then pick up some good bargains in December.
Re:Applications? (Score:5, Insightful)
Well I wouldn't be that certain about that. But it's certainly stupid to knife the OS development arm, which was the only thing they had which was unique, for application development which is crowded with competition from everyone and their dog.
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Well I wouldn't be that certain about that. But it's certainly stupid to knife the OS development arm, which was the only thing they had which was unique, for application development which is crowded with competition from everyone and their dog.
The OS is the combination for base plus some apps. I actually like the apps, I downloaded an OS image and extracted apps for things like file manager and torch etc and put them on a stock Nexus. Can't see there's much money in that though.
And $1bn seems mad.
Re:Applications? (Score:4, Insightful)
Indeed. They have gone and killed what made them unique to now compete in the cheap-trash mass-market. Corporate suicide at its best.
What will be interesting to see is whether Cyanogen Mod survives. The fired OS-group should start their own company and carry on. Maybe try Patreon financing or something like it.
Re:Applications? (Score:4, Insightful)
Well I wouldn't be that certain about that. But it's certainly stupid to knife the OS development arm, which was the only thing they had which was unique, for application development which is crowded with competition from everyone and their dog.
Let's go around in circles, though: What made their OS development arm unique was their apps, that were designed not to work with AOSP like a well-designed app would. Meanwhile, AOKP and SOKP are supporting more devices between them than Cyanogenmod, so what do they actually have to offer other than their apps? Conclusion, stick with the apps.
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>what do they have to offer other than apps.
An os that doesn't relay everything to unknown third parties.
It's the same OS offered by AOKP, except with some applications thrown in.
After the knife ... (Score:5, Insightful)
... there will always be forks. That's the open source way. I'm not worried.
Re:After the knife ... (Score:5, Insightful)
There will always be monopoly or fragmentation... pick your poison
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You're thinking from a company's point of view. The user's point of view is the direct opposite of what you said. Losers use what monopolists give them, winners use what they choose.
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136 employees before layoffs? Amazon could absorb that in a DAY and not even blink. I'm not exaggerating.
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136 employees before layoffs? Amazon could absorb that in a DAY and not even blink. I'm not exaggerating.
Maybe so, but I don't care much about Amazon firing or hiring 30 people, because they don't produce/polish my mobile operating system. Granted, I'm sure someone will successfully fork CyanogenMod if Cyanogen kills it, but I kind of like it as it is, since it actually works fairly well.
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I hope CyanogenMod continues. Combined with Nova Launcher and some other apps, it makes a very stable, decent platform for day to day use, and a phone upgrade (assuming it has an unlockable bootloader) doesn't mean a UI change.
The alternatives are "meh". At best, I there are people in the XDA forums who are top tier ROM chefs, making something custom that helps a device work quite well, but this can vary on device and how popular (or not) it might be. Most likely it might be a factory ROM, rooted, and de
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Time will tell. The basis is there, but are the capable and interested people? I hope they are.
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Not entirely true (Score:5, Informative)
I happen to still be employed by Cyanogen, Inc and work on the OS side so take the rumors with a grain of salt.
Employees will know more after Tuesday.
Re: Not entirely true (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I happen to still be employed by Cyanogen, Inc and work on the OS side so take the rumors with a grain of salt.
Employees will know more after Tuesday.
I hope you're being truthful, but given that you posted anonymously your comment carries absolutely zero credibility. Care to be more convincing? I WANT to believe.
Re:Not entirely true (Score:5, Interesting)
I work at Oracle, which is run by lawyers. You better believe I'll never post anything about them in any fashion other than anonymously.
Re: (Score:2)
My condolences. That company has some good and some bad tech, but the management is among the most evil and negative in the world. "Lawyers" would explain that nicely, of course.
Re: (Score:2)
Posting something about your employer without being anonymous is just plain stupid!
Depends on your employer. I post stuff about my employer all the time, under a slashdot username that is the same as my corporate LDAP username, and have gotten kudos for it. I've also gotten a couple of calls from legal, asking me to be careful about commenting on legal issues, but the attorneys apologized effusively for doing so, and pointed out that they recognized I was being careful but just want to reiterate that it was important.
But my employer is particularly open-minded, and particularly confiden
Re: (Score:2)
Wow, that sounds like a great company to work for. I wish I worked at a place that open-minded.
Oh, wait :)
Re: (Score:2)
Employees will know more after Tuesday.
Ex-employees will know more by Wednesday?
Where's the app apper guy? (Score:3)
For once, he'd be on topic.
Re: (Score:1)
For once, he'd be on topic.
Nothing is stopping you from being him. Just log out first. :)
Better idea (Score:1)
Perhaps the executives and HR department should have been fired. That would have been a far better decision.
Cyanogen != CyanogenMod (Score:5, Informative)
* People were fed up with carrier-crap on their phones
* People were fed up with Google-crap on their phones
* CyanogenMod offered a crap-free phone OS
The "Cyanogen Inc" outfit tried to cash on the popularity of CyanogenMod. But they turned around, sold out, and baked their own crap into the OS. https://techcrunch.com/2016/01... [techcrunch.com] Yes, MS Cortana. If I wanted a smartphone run by MS, I'd buy an MS smartphone already. This was a major betrayal of why people use CyanogenMod. And "Cyanogen Inc" is paying the price.
Re:Cyanogen != CyanogenMod (Score:4, Interesting)
* People were fed up with carrier-crap on their phones
I'm definitely in that camp, I'm sticking with the Nexus, not only do I not have all of the carrier crap, but I also get regular OS updates - my 3 year old Nexus 7 tablet still receives near monthly updates.
* People were fed up with Google-crap on their phones
Apparently not that many, or Cyanogen would have a market for their OS. Even cyanogen provides a wiki page to tell you how to load Google Apps on your Cyanogenmod device, because "many users find them beneficial to take full advantage of the Android ecosystem."
https://wiki.cyanogenmod.org/w... [cyanogenmod.org]
Re: (Score:3)
The BIG difference between the Google apps package for alternative ROMs like CyanogenMod and the Google apps installed on Nexus phones by default, is that under ROMs like CyanogenMod, you can install a very _limited_ google apps selection. For example, you can have basically just the google play store, and that's it. No Hangouts, Gmail, Google app, Chrome, Drive, etc, etc.
Re: (Score:2)
The BIG difference between the Google apps package for alternative ROMs like CyanogenMod and the Google apps installed on Nexus phones by default, is that under ROMs like CyanogenMod, you can install a very _limited_ google apps selection. For example, you can have basically just the google play store, and that's it. No Hangouts, Gmail, Google app, Chrome, Drive, etc, etc.
I don't remember that being an issue. However I only used CM for a while to get my flakey Nexus 4 to work with a hack I had to make to get Android to ignore the out of range temp values from the flakey temp sensor. The 5 was great as it came.
After going Google from the G1 through to the N5, I've gone to the Apply side just to see what's it's like over there.
Re: (Score:1)
The BIG difference between the Google apps package for alternative ROMs like CyanogenMod and the Google apps installed on Nexus phones by default, is that under ROMs like CyanogenMod, you can install a very _limited_ google apps selection. For example, you can have basically just the google play store, and that's it. No Hangouts, Gmail, Google app, Chrome, Drive, etc, etc.
I don't remember that being an issue.....
It's not an issue. It's an advantage. "you can install a very _limited_ google apps selection" but you don't have to. All the other apps are available in the store, but you don't have to install them if you don't want them. Most phones enforce all sorts of things that you can't remove even if you need the space.
Re: (Score:2)
Gotcha.
I misinterpreted your comment.
Re: (Score:2)
under ROMs like CyanogenMod, you can install a very _limited_ google apps selection. For example, you can have basically just the google play store, and that's it. No Hangouts, Gmail, Google app, Chrome, Drive, etc, etc.
Not true. Check Delta Gapps With Modular Addons (All DPI) [xda-developers.com]. You're welcome.
Re: (Score:2)
Which part is not true? All I am saying is that there exist micro/pico/mini distributions of opengapps which allow you to install as big gapps collection as you like. There is one of them that allows the play store and that's pretty much it, which should really be the only option.
Re: (Score:2)
Sorry but your comment doesn't makes sense. All you need is the play store and play services. Everything else is available on the play store itself. Why would you want Hangouts Gmail, Chrome, Drive, etc all bundled with the firmware? Bundled apps get installed in system space and then when the play store updates them in two weeks they go to the non-system part of your phone's memory, meaning all that space used up in /system is just a waste now. Google started moving away from bundling all the apps a lo
Re: (Score:2)
My comment makes entirely sense. I think you didn't read it carefully, that's why you're saying exactly what I said. I was replying to a statement that says that "google crap" is supposedly good. Not. Check out how many Google apps are pre-installed by default on a typical google Nexus smartphone. Dozens. I mean, literally many dozens. And many of them do cause problems because some apps, even when you never use them, still have services running in the background which wake up your phone and make it drain i
Re: (Score:3)
Even cyanogen provides a wiki page to tell you how to load Google Apps on your Cyanogenmod device, because "many users find them beneficial to take full advantage of the Android ecosystem."
Many Android app developers only upload their apps to Google Play. It may be possible to find the apps on other app markets, but you have no idea if it is the real deal or crawling with malware.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
That's why I use Raccoon (http://www.onyxbits.de/raccoon) on a PC to download the application from Play, transfer it to the phone and install manually. No Google crap required.
Re: (Score:2)
Many Android app developers only upload their apps to Google Play.
Then ask the developers to also upload to Amazon (if proprietary) or F-Droid (if free).
Re: (Score:2)
* People were fed up with Google-crap on their phones
I saw some stats a few years ago on XDA where the developers said that their Google Apps package was downloaded almost as frequently as Cyanogenmod itself.
People were fed-up with vendor bastardisations on their phone. The carrier crap can mostly be hidden, but buying nice hardware meant sometimes you were stuck with really REALLY shitty software ... like Samsung's Android releases back in the day.
Life goes on (Score:4, Interesting)
Cyanogen Inc and its CyanogenMod project is basically the RedHat and Fedora of the Android ROM world. While losing CyanogenMod, in the worst case scenario, is going to be a loss and an annoyance in the short term, other ROM projects will take their place.
Speaking of alternatives, wasn't OmniROM supposed to be an alternative to CyanogenMod? I have had a good experience with older OmniROM ROMs, but their list of supported hardware is very short. Hope it gets better with time.
Re: (Score:1)
It would be nice to see a CyanogenMod-like project, with a company/organization whose sole goal is to make it better. Not make another OS, but to focus on making one ROM that can work well across a lot of devices. Of course, this is something resource intensive, but this is something that should be funded by multiple parties, especially with various governments' fear of backdoors.
A good example would be going back to a standard of dm-crypt where it would be completely in software, but the user would have
Re: (Score:2)
I remember rumors a few years ago that VMware was going to make a smartphone hypervisor that would allow for smartphone VM partitioning.
The downsides would be battery consumption, paltry RAM on smartphones and the fact that you would basically need a major OEM to bake it into the design.
Of course the unachievable dream would have been iOS and Android VMs on one piece of hardware.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
well, no. For better or for worse, Red Hat actually employs major contributors or otherwise supports upstream development for many desktop/server Linux distribution components. besides the kernel itself, there's glibc, systemd, gcc, and a whole bunch of other shit. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if more Red Hat-funded code in regular Android just from the kernel alone than there is Cyanogen code, and Android doesn't even use glibc or systemd!
Whereas Android is still overwhelmingly a a Google project,
Microsoft Involvement (Score:5, Insightful)
Raise your hand if you didn't see this coming. Frankly, I'm shocked that people stayed with Cyanogen, Inc. after Microsoft got involved. Once Microsoft puts money into your company, it's time to start looking for a new job while you still have one.
Microsoft has always been the kiss of death, and it still surprises me when people don't see the writing on the wall.
Re:Microsoft Involvement (Score:4, Insightful)
Before they got involved with Microsoft, they'd already screwed over OnePlus, their first and highest profile CyanogenOS customer. OnePlus immediately turned around and basically demonstrated that they didn't actually need Cyanogen to deliver a decent Android.
That and the dipshit blathering about putting a bullet through Google's head probably did more damage than Microsoft did.
I just bought a Wileyfox. It's my fault (Score:1)
Not a shock, but a sad day nonetheless (Score:2)
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You mean like windows phone 7, 7.8, 8, 8,1, 10? Yeah, closed source does much better in dumping software indeed.
Re: Wow, open source is a disaster (Score:5, Informative)
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[Free and] Open Source is what allows a project to survive a corporate purge like this. If it was closed and proprietary when they shut things down and fired everybody that would be the end of the road. But in this case the beat goes on.
Re: (Score:3)
Slashdot Canned Response #31: "So... you're about 14 years old, right?"
--someone with mod points
Re: (Score:1)
An open source project shows some signs of problems and the MS zealots jump all over it.
If only we went off just as much when a closed source program that people use goes down the tubes.
I know i bit the troll but seriously, this is the bullshit the people actually swallow now days?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't know. CyanogenMod was actually doing pretty well before MS came along. Seems more like "Oprah's" money poisoned the well.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
I don't know. CyanogenMod was actually doing pretty well before MS came along. Seems more like "Oprah's" money poisoned the well.
This is hardly a surprise, no company properly survives partnering with Microsoft. Lists of past Microsoft partners [asymco.com] were passed around when Nokia did it (there was a much more extensive one but I can't find it)
I think this is not only because Microsoft is incompetent or bad, it's probably not even mainly because they set out to destroy their partners. It is because Microsoft is, and always has been a slightly corrupt and amoral organisation. If you wanted a partner to develop your business you would find
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Wow, open source is a disaster (Score:5, Insightful)
Bullshit, Linux 1.2 ran quite well on my 486DX4/100 and supported all hardware. FreeBSD 2.2.8 ran nice on my K6/233. Even with basic 3D support. FreeBSD 4 ran great on my Athlon/600 with Adaptec 2940 (with a even bigger pile of SCSI drives, a Bernoulli and an Exabyte tape drive), Radeon 9200, 3COM PCI NIC and various other goodies.
It really wasn't until purposely locked down 802.11 and mutant locked down 3D accelerators that we even NEEDED commercial backing. And it wasn't until commercial backing that people felt the need that a timesharing/server/developer/power-user OS needed to be palatable for millennial retards thus killing the appeal for most people who made it awesome to begin with. GNOME3, KDE4, SystemD..... all abominations and very un-unix-like. And..... it's still not the year of the linux desktop for grandma no matter how much you try to integrate the worst of Windows and MacOS into a bloated buggy shitshow.
All this work over decades to replicate what UNIX users didn't want.... and then Google slaps a Java stack with a crippled poke-and-drool UI on top of the Linux kernel over a few years and it's in everyone's pocket. And desktop Linux sucks more than it ever did. Even MS wanted a piece of the Android pie, their piece just capitulated however.
Re: (Score:2)
It's amazing how many butthurt 15-25 year olds can't come to grips with the fact that they've destroyed something great and attempt to mod truth as trolling.
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I think you are very unfair to include KDE4 in that list. Yes, it was bad at 4.0 but that is ancient history now. Many years ago it surpassed KDE3 in every possible way and it works in pretty much the same way, just better. If KDE4 isn't "unix-like" I don't know what is. It does not deserve to be compared to Gnome and Systemd.
Re: Wow, open source is a disaster (Score:5, Interesting)
I think what he is talking about is how KDE has lost it's way. KDE3 had a very solid foundational philosophy based on everything is a file. That no matter what you accessed or how you accessed it or where it was in the end all you are accessing is a file. So from the user perspective you just needed a browser to access textFiles-documents-websites-media-NFS-SMB-SSH.. you name it. You could split the app into non overlapping windows ad infinitum and copy and paste from anything to anything as if there were no such things as different access or format types. That was goal. If you wanted to open that file with another tool it was right there in the left-click drop down menu or could be selected from the full list of applications available without having to search for the file from the application menu or application file browser.
KDE4 s-canned that whole schema instead creating a just-like-everyone-else file browser and web browser (pushing konqueror to the background with no more development) and focusing instead on little desktop gizmos that never really took off. And while I admit the KDE activities thing is pretty cool it doesn't make up for the fact that it takes longer for the desktop to load than it does for the rest of the OS. KDE has really just become a big just-another-desktop..
Re: (Score:2)
Nothing about GNOME3, KDE4, SystemD, etc prevents Linux from being packaged as the unix-like server of your wet dreams. But those things do help make it a viable desktop system. Of course, they also make it too much of a moving target to be a wildly successful desktop system, but hey... the desktop is changing and losing relevance. Android and ChromeOS are certainly relevant in what seems to be rising to replace the traditional desktop.
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Yep and even half of the text editors out there will need 750MB of dependencies and install 90% of the crap you installed slackware to get away from anyway. An application shouldn't require installing most of a bloated desktop environment just to function. At most they should require a small GUI widget library and do everything else with standard OS functions and functionality provided by standard X11 libraries/extensions.
Unless you just want to run 20 year old software written in proper UNIX fashion, the
Re: (Score:1)
Thank you for a voice of sanity and reason.
Historically the responses to reality is nothing but a shitshow. Slashdot didn't used to be like this. Now the youngsters think the shitshow is the new normal and rail against restoring sanity.
A decade later and my Linux desktop is just now beginning to be as good as it was a decade and a half ago - only still less stable. Systemd is a train wreck.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
I would really like to see a Hercules card do 8-bit color. That would be legendary. The only way that's happening is if you drop acid, wait an hour and stare at the screen.
Hercules InColor Card (Score:2)
In addition to the MDA-with-graphics Hercules Graphics Card (HGC), Hercules also made a CGA clone called the Hercules Color Card designed to coexist with the HGC. I don't know if it's compatible enough to run the 8088 MPH demo. This was followed by a 16-of-64-color card comparable to EGA, called the Hercules InColor Card. But you're correct that no well-known Hercules card could do 256 explicit colors.
Re: (Score:1)
You needed a screen?