All Cyanogen Services Are Shutting Down (cyngn.com) 113
Long-time Slashdot reader Nemosoft Unv. writes: A very brief post on
Cyanogen's blog says it all really: "As part of the ongoing consolidation of Cyanogen, all services and Cyanogen-supported nightly builds will be discontinued no later than 12/31/16. The open source project and source code will remain available for anyone who wants to build CyanogenMod personally." Of course, with no focused team behind the CyanogenMod project it's effectively dead. Building an Android OS from scratch is no mean feat and most users won't be able to pull this off, let alone make fixes and updates. So what will happen next?
Cyanogen had already laid off 20% of its workforce in July, and in November announced they had "separated ties" with Cyanogen founder and primary contributor Steve Kondik. One Android site quoted Kondik as saying "what I was trying to do, is over" in a private Google+ community, and the same day Kondik posted on Twitter, "Time for the next adventure." He hasn't posted since, so it's not clear what he's up to now. But the more important question is whether anyone will continue developing CyanogenMod.
UPDATE: Android Police reports that the CyanogenMod team "has posted an update of their own, confirming the shutdown of the CM infrastructure and outlining a plan to continue the open-source initiative as Lineage." The team posts on their blog that "we the community of developers, designers, device maintainers and translators have taken the steps necessary to produce a fork of the CM source code and pending patches."
UPDATE: Android Police reports that the CyanogenMod team "has posted an update of their own, confirming the shutdown of the CM infrastructure and outlining a plan to continue the open-source initiative as Lineage." The team posts on their blog that "we the community of developers, designers, device maintainers and translators have taken the steps necessary to produce a fork of the CM source code and pending patches."
Well.... damn! (Score:5, Interesting)
Replicant (Score:2)
Re:Well.... damn! (Score:5, Insightful)
Except it has had zero effect on Google which is the only realistic target for MS doing an embrace, extend extinguish.
And, during that time period, windowsphone was extinguished.
No, this was just mismanagement by the CM guys.
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Except it has had zero effect on Google which is the only realistic target for MS doing an embrace, extend extinguish.
And, during that time period, windowsphone was extinguished.
No, this was just mismanagement by the CM guys.
wish I had points to mod the parent up. Not everything is an evil M$ plan.
Correction (Score:3)
wish I had points to mod the parent up. Not everything is an evil M$ plan.
wish I had points to mod the parent up. Not every evil is a M$ plan.
Sometimes,,, (Score:4, Funny)
wish I had points to mod the parent up. Not everything is an evil M$ plan.
Yup, there is sometimes an evil M$ coincidence...
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Well, actually there was a plan at one time for Microsoft to invest in Cyanogen, Inc. And there was much speculation that the reason for that investment was to prepare a Microsoft-friendly mainstream Android spin that would be there in case Windows Mobile tanked (it hadn't completely tanked yet at the time). The resultant outcry caused them to back off, but you don't go making statements like CM, Inc's CEO did about 'wresting Android from Google' without some viable alternative in the wings for Google ser
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Well if simply uttering a three-word meme was the only proof of any wrongdoing then it deserved to be "punish-modded" then as it does now.
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Well if simply uttering a three-word meme was the only proof of any wrongdoing then it deserved to be "punish-modded" then as it does now.
Why?
People get modded Insightful on herd all the time for repeating ridiculous memes about Apple.
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One of my criteria for buying a phone was that it had CM available -- my latest being the OnePlus X. Every Android phone I've owned has run CM.
Dammit, I just bought an S5 for that very same reason, a OnePlus X is a much nicer phone. The later S5 I have seems to have partitioning issues with CM, but I will keep chipping away, have you tried it with the 1+X yet?.
I think the idea behind CM is a really good one, except that the market isn't ready. The market impetus for CM is to have more control over the device. As technologists we are probably more easily frustrated by this as we are supposed to be ahead of developments. However I think more people
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I bought a ZTE Axon 7 when reading that ZTE was actively working with Cyanogen Inc to get the device on the supported list.
Maybe it will roll over into LineageOS (where Cyanogenmod's corpse is being reanimated)?
Sam
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I bought a ZTE Axon 7 when reading that ZTE was actively working with Cyanogen Inc to get the device on the supported list.
Maybe it will roll over into LineageOS (where Cyanogenmod's corpse is being reanimated)?
Sam
I'm on the learning curve. I would like to see how many phones I can do, so if lineageOS is where the CM community is going, I will go there. If not, it might be time to look at an ubuntu phone.
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One of my criteria for buying a phone was that it had CM available -- my latest being the OnePlus X. Every Android phone I've owned has run CM. This is very disappointing.
Check OmniROM - https://omnirom.org/ [omnirom.org]
It forked from CM quite a while ago - and it'd be swell if the active CM crowd just continued there.....
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I used OmniROM during the KitKat era, and it felt like an extremely solid and fast ROM. I think they were closer to the stock Android even than Cyanogenmod. The only problem with OmniROM has always been a very poor device support. If you have a Nexus phone, then you're set. But it's pretty spotty/poor outside of Nexus devices.
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I used OmniROM during the KitKat era, and it felt like an extremely solid and fast ROM. I think they were closer to the stock Android even than Cyanogenmod. The only problem with OmniROM has always been a very poor device support. If you have a Nexus phone, then you're set. But it's pretty spotty/poor outside of Nexus devices.
Yup - hence the best thing they could get is more support / contributions / patches.
Well shit, what do I do now? (Score:2)
Damn, I've been using CM nightlies on my phone for the last year. Now what am I supposed to do? I was actually going to spend my day redoing my phone with 14 so I could get Android 7.
What's a good alternative OS, given that I can not go back to stock? (No, really, there's a lock so I can't reflash the stock OS)
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Hah, I've been beard-free since 2004. When my daughter was born, she cried every time she touched it.
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HTC One m8. They just pushed the 14 nightlies and I was looking forward to getting split-screens working.
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My Motorola X-10 bag phone still works fine. Motorola has not released a firmware upgrade for it in decades so I assume it has been perfected.
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There are a still a lot of AOSP-based custom ROMs and depending on your phone's maker modified stock ROMs. As usual, check xda-developers.com forum for your device...
LibreOffice (Score:2, Informative)
Remember LibreOffice? Someone will pick this up and keep developing it.
Re: LibreOffice (Score:2, Interesting)
that was more of a fork but i agree this is popular enough that some one will continue it im sure.
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They've already announced a fork of the project. It's called Lineage OS:
Tagline "Yes, this is us. We aren't going anywhere."
http://lineageos.org/ [lineageos.org]
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Yeah, that's exactly what the last part of the submission already says. Way to be insightful there, brah.
Continuing via fork under new name 'LineageOS' (Score:5, Informative)
So not 100% dead, just not using the CyanogenMod brand any more because it's become tainted.
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This is a double blessing then. I could never wrap my brain around the name cyanogenmod, could never remember it, had few friends that ever even heard of it, etc. People would just say (incorrectly), "root your phone", rather than something like, "install cyanogenmod or another alternative OS". LineageOS sounds like a great name.
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So not 100% dead
Just pinin' for the fjords.
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Github says, "This organization has no public members. You must be a member to see who’s a part of this organization." Are there any serious efforts to pick this up by the open source community?
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The loss of the infrastructure, especially the build servers and distribution network, is going to hurt them badly.
Agreed. I tried, and failed, to find anything OTHER than that github account yesterday. No social media accounts, no new blog, no website. I only hope that this is because they're not "ready" yet, and the announcement yesterday was rushed due to pending loss of access to the old site(s).
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In fact there's now a tweet [twitter.com]:
Not quite (Score:5, Interesting)
Cyanogen Inc. the company is dead and bankrupt. Good riddance. This has of course repercussions for the community project cyanogenmod as well. Especially for the name "cyanogen" itself, which belongs to the company but also infrastructure like servers which were used by the community project.
But the people behind cyanogenmod, the ones doing the actual work for many phones, not the guys who wanted to simply sell that work, will continue:
A quote from a blog entry at https://www.cyanogenmod.org/bl... [cyanogenmod.org]
"Embracing that spirit, we the community of developers, designers, device maintainers and translators have taken the steps necessary to produce a fork of the CM source code and pending patches. This is more than just a ‘rebrand’. This fork will return to the grassroots community effort that used to define CM while maintaining the professional quality and reliability you have come to expect more recently."
So the name cyanogen/cyanogenmod is dead, the project itself is hopefully not.
Re:Not quite (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course, the problem here is that development of huge massive codebases involve needing people to work on the boring stuff.
If this doesn't happen, then no, the code doesn't immediately break.
But over time, it gets harder and harder for the average developer to build.
And at some point, you have a couple of die-hards working on it, at which point it may as well be dead.
I
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CM people did the hard stuff before Cyanogen Inc. came along, there is reasonable hope they will do it after Cyanogen Inc. is gone as well.
CM isn't even the only group doing custom Android Firmwares, just the biggest.
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And we have absolutely 0 examples of a successful 'huge complicated project to develop an end-user, server, embedded OS with complete User Interface, tools etc. that runs on x86, x64, ARM & probably 10 other processors'....
Wow, you're on /. you'd think you'd have some clue about the state of OpenSource software...but just in case I suggest you google Linux as a start.
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Android is very, very different to mainstream linux.
The presence of much greater platform diversity, and massive revisions dropped from above with no warning or care about your fixes is a massive problem.
The number of people working on linux distributions is also far more than those working on android ones.
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The number of people working on linux distributions is also far more than those working on android ones.
Plus many of them are paid. Look at the kernel change logs - or those for many of the popular packages people usually install with Linux - and start counting the mentions of Red Hat (or other corporate) employees.
People get tired of working on the boring stuff, but that's often what's necessary to keep a project moving forward. For volunteers, there's often little motivation to work on things which don't hold some intellectual interest for them.
Re: Not quite (Score:2)
And the kernel is also used by Android
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People get tired of working on the boring stuff, but that's often what's necessary to keep a project moving forward. For volunteers, there's often little motivation to work on things which don't hold some intellectual interest for them.
I would like to point out that a lot of the 'boring stuff' is interoperability with other crappy systems, which wouldn't be necessary with a little care and thought.
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and massive revisions dropped from above with no warning or care about your fixes is a massive problem.
Oh yeah, thanks for reminding me of yet another reason I hate Google (and if anyone is thinking about modding me down, first consider whether you enjoy it when people/companies do that to you).
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We do have another example of an end user phone, embedded OS that probably runs on x86, ARM and MIPS, it was Firefox OS and it dropped dead like a flying brick.
I wonder if the same will happen, or maybe the list of compatible hardware will be even more and more restricted till a handful of Samsung and Nexus are left standing, and slowly dying.
It was only a matter of time (Score:5, Insightful)
Once MS got involved, it was going to be game over, man.
I'm hoping Sailfish continues to evolve....
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Oh no. He did bring enough for the whole class. It's just that he took it all at recess.
Thanks, Obama (Score:1, Funny)
Obama is still the president for another month, so this is his fault. :-p
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You are mistaken.
The Russians did it.
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You are mistaken.
The Russians did it.
Wait—Obama is Russian?
Wait—Russians are MUSLIM?!?
Suddenly, it all make sense!!!
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Russians were actually all born in Kenya
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Ever notice how the FBI never goes after Google/Android/Samsung/etc. for access to their phones? Apple has a much smaller market share and the feds are all over them?
Because Android is like a screen door. The feds don't need to sue, they just walk in.
No, it is because Android doesn't do encryption by default - the "why" beats me. Enable it and it is as strong as any Apple offering.
Re: At least iOS is still around. (Score:2, Informative)
New devices, since Android 6.0 Marshmallow, do encrypt by default. Custom ROMs often turn this off, CyanogenMod left it on.
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Ever notice how the FBI never goes after Google/Android/Samsung/etc. for access to their phones? Apple has a much smaller market share and the feds are all over them?
Because Android is like a screen door. The feds don't need to sue, they just walk in.
No, it is because Android doesn't do encryption by default - the "why" beats me. Enable it and it is as strong as any Apple offering.
While I agree it would be significantly stronger than not having encryption enabled, how much stronger it is entirely dependent on the particular device's hardware.
And in any event, it is not likely to be "as strong as any Apple offering", sorry.
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While I agree it would be significantly stronger than not having encryption enabled, how much stronger it is entirely dependent on the particular device's hardware.
Wrong. Android uses AES via dm-crypt, which is the same cipher used by iOS - the difference is that not all devices have hardware crypto support. IIRC this is one of the reasons Android doesn't enable it by default; it comes with a performance hit.
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While I agree it would be significantly stronger than not having encryption enabled, how much stronger it is entirely dependent on the particular device's hardware.
Wrong. Android uses AES via dm-crypt, which is the same cipher used by iOS - the difference is that not all devices have hardware crypto support. IIRC this is one of the reasons Android doesn't enable it by default; it comes with a performance hit.
I was thinking about the Secure Enclave chip that Apple uses. How many Android devices have that sort of thing?
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] . Any device using Android 6.0 onwards.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] . Any device using Android 6.0 onwards.
It sounds like that is half of the system that Apple has implemented. Apple's Axx SoC's have a TEE, but they also have the "Secure Enclave" (SE) CHIP. What is still missing in Android's implementation is the SEPERATE Secure Enclave chip.
I'm not a security expert, but from what I understand, the SE holds the key (literally) to decryption, and there is no direct or even indirect path to that key. That provides an important additional level of abstraction and security that no "on chip" solution can provide.
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They're literally the same thing. Apple's "secure enclave" uses the ARM A7's TrustZone/SecurCore tech, which is basically an independent CPU in the same die. There's nothing magical about it - Android's been supporting it for eons now: https://source.android.com/sec... [android.com]
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They're literally the same thing. Apple's "secure enclave" uses the ARM A7's TrustZone/SecurCore tech, which is basically an independent CPU in the same die. There's nothing magical about it - Android's been supporting it for eons now: https://source.android.com/sec... [android.com]
Sorry, still incorrect. Although Android is (gradually) getting better, slowly, it still is hit and miss [stackexchange.com], depending on which SoC your device OEM decides to use.
The only thing I was incorrect about is that I was under the impression that the SE was a separate component, rather than being implemented on-die in the Axx SoC. Other than that, my assertion that iOS' Security is more robust than Android's, stands.
Tomorrow may be different; but we're living in today...
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You're a mean one....Mr. Grinch.....
Terrible News for Android Fans... (Score:3)
Oh, wait...
Everybody calm you peepees (Score:2)
It's Christmas, so take that Christmas chill pill and relax. There will always be free ROMs as long as Google doesn't shut off AOSP completely. And unlike the article says, you don't need an Android system most people can build from scratch: what you do need is Android free as it is today, OEMs providing open drivers or at least driver packages that can be bundle with custom ROMs, and the dedicated developers on XDA that will have your back because they love what they do and they have the time. I know how s
Re: The Truth is Out There (Score:1, Funny)
I'm glad this information is finally coming to light. I was looking for a good place to have dinner.