Related
Hi all!
I'm an android developer, and I regularly read the official android-dev and android-porting lists, but on all the fan blogs and from lurking here, it seems that all the good development is coming from XDA-dev!
So why don't you guys do some patch submission? Features like auto-rotating browser and the transition animations should really, really be in the main source, but the official Android team have their thumbs up their asses in regards to UI/polished stuff.. (I bet they're too busy working on the lower level cellular stuff and the ARM-generating stuff like in the *flinger libraries).
So you guys should make some patch submissions over at (http://source.android.com/submit-patches)!
That way, the next RC will have all of these lovely features you guys have implemented.
((Or, alternately (but more ambitiously), fork the entire codebase. Strip out the DRM and add a framework for native code execution. Perhaps that's a pipe dream, though..))
Thoughts?
I think forking the Android source would be a very nice touch, if Google doesn't pull it together. We could still add on to stuff from the official code, but add on all the special stuff that Google refuses to (they've said they won't add the ability to change CPU speed, etc).
Oh, absolutely, there would be numerous advantages to having a fork. It should definitely be discussed! I'm afraid that Google may be trying to exert too much control on their platform in ways that we don't always want, so there is nothing legally to stop us from forking and maintain a more badass tree. GitHub could provide the hosting.
Of course, it might be a waste of effort. If you submit the badass patches, then the good features here go out into all the phones in the next versions. Work on the fork, and only the selected users who are able to flash their own phones can use it, unless some Chinese companies start using it or something like that.
Names?
XanDroid? I'd rather like to see Mandroid with in a slick black theme..
Well to me it seems like the only people doing cool things right now with android have rooted devices
So why cant you ***** a little on google lists to make them actually do some work. The Roadmap @ http://source.android.com/roadmap is a joke. Either they give us root or they start working imo. =)
Seanambers said:
Well to me it seems like the only people doing cool things right now with android have rooted devices
So why cant you ***** a little on google lists to make them actually do some work. The Roadmap @ http://source.android.com/roadmap is a joke. Either they give us root or they start working imo. =)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Do you think that the release of the new unlocked Dev phones will change things?
Yeah it'll most probably shake things up a bit, however what about all those that already have a g1?
I for sure isnt buying a new phone to get root.
But even so, we're still talking about modifications to the OS and the packaged applications, which would be released in the next RC version, so even non-root users would get the features in the next update, along with anyone running Android on something besides a G1.
my .02
Id say submit some of the things found here and see what goog does with it, if they openly add these things that need root at this point and let xda dev participate in the OS with such submitions...then cool thats how open source works best, when anybody can add to the project, a phone OS utopia
If they ignore it then, a fork is the way to go but give google a chance to do the right thing first before, just leaving them in the xdadevs dust with a custom distro...
bhang said:
Id say submit some of the things found here and see what goog does with it, if they openly add these things that need root at this point and let xda dev participate in the OS with such submitions...then cool thats how open source works best, when anybody can add to the project, a phone OS utopia
If they ignore it then, a fork is the way to go but give google a chance to do the right thing first before, just leaving them in the xdadevs dust with a custom distro...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Google has refused to add multiple features. They feel that they aren't necessary, or that your average consumer wouldn't want it (main thing I can think of atm is CPU speed).
If they don't add the features we request, simply because *they* don't like them, then a fork would get us exactly what we want/need. After we fork it, and the number of users using stock Android plummet, maybe they will listen .
I see a problem with forking... who says what is allowed and not allowed? That is the main problem. Now if you wanted to just add an app that would be one thing but there is not going to be an easy way to do this.
Gary13579 said:
Google has refused to add multiple features. They feel that they aren't necessary, or that your average consumer wouldn't want it (main thing I can think of atm is CPU speed).
If they don't add the features we request, simply because *they* don't like them, then a fork would get us exactly what we want/need. After we fork it, and the number of users using stock Android plummet, maybe they will listen .
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Given the number of G1s with modified fw installed compared to the total number of sold units, I somehow doubt the number of users is going to plummet.
IMHO it would be a needless fork unless some new or considerably modified features were planned. Better to just patch the functionality into the official builds, if at all possible.
I'm not convinced by that logic. There would be an important difference between a fork and patched versions of the firmware, as a fork would have a totally different design philosophy. Whereas Android is focused on speed (or whatever the hell they're concentrating on..but to be honest, I think they're dicking about over there), Mandroid could have more focus on polished features and low-level access. ((And! No DRM, and I'd like to see some more security features..ZRTP?))
Either way, I think it's really important for the success of the open future of phones that the open source community take and give back. There's no need for the back-and-forth like with, say, PSP-cracking as we have the source code and we are allowed to do whatever we like with it. If we just keep patching what they give us and keeping the modifications closed, then we aren't really in control.
As for project management, I'm absolutely sure there are people who are capable of maintaining an active open-source project such as this, as long as there is a well-thought out design philosophy. I'd love to be involved, if enough people are willing to give it a shot. But, first, it'd be easier just to submit patches.
Miserlou! said:
PSP-cracking
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
PSP cracking is insanely different. If you were in that scene, does my name look familiar ? Was net admin at toc2rta/malloc, admin of psp-hacks.com, worked with a lot of people on a lot of stuff that I barely remember as it was years ago .
But for the PSP, we were working with a system we knew nothing about. So yes, Android would be a lot simpler to work with. But if Google doesn't listen to us, it's not like it would really matter.
neoobs said:
I see a problem with forking... who says what is allowed and not allowed? That is the main problem. Now if you wanted to just add an app that would be one thing but there is not going to be an easy way to do this.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Android is licensed by both the Apache Software License (do whatever you want with it) and the General Public License (do whatever you want with it as long as you make the source code available for others). We are certainly allowed to do this, but the problem lies with the G1 owners running the official RC30. They wont have the rights required to flash the image which leaves them out of the party.
2 words
The community(did I spell that right?)
Bhang
Datruesurfer said:
Android is licensed by both the Apache Software License (do whatever you want with it) and the General Public License (do whatever you want with it as long as you make the source code available for others). We are certainly allowed to do this, but the problem lies with the G1 owners running the official RC30. They wont have the rights required to flash the image which leaves them out of the party.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I meant who is going to the be decision maker of what features will be added... The Community as a whole? What about some that want it but only 25% of the community wants it?
neoobs said:
I meant who is going to the be decision maker of what features will be added... The Community as a whole? What about some that want it but only 25% of the community wants it?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's what project leads are for. And hypothetically when enough people are dissatisfied with the xda-dev fork they will go and create their own fork. Except I don't think there is any real argument yet to go and create an xda-dev fork in the first place. Forking an operating system meaningfully is not a weekend project for a single person.
I have said it before, let's give them a bit more of a chance, a fork isn't something a guy can do in a weekend.
So let's see what happens in RC3X, the next release will give folks a bbetter idea of where their heads are at. If enough of the community is unhappy there will be a fork
Bhang
Alright - there's been some concern about me link baiting for traffic to my blog. I don't really care much about traffic to my blog whatsoever (no, I don't get any ad revenue), so I'm reposting the entire post, in its entirety, without any links back to my blog.
It's inflammatory, but I think there's suggestions that should be considered. I'll post some of the suggestions in here on the XDA suggestions thread, too.
TL;DR: Cowboys suck (even if they contribute tons of code upstream, witholding source code "until it's ready" for an OSS project is disingenuous at best), the XDA forums are *okay*, but the flat comment format that most, if not all forum software impose is completely outdated (look at Reddit and mailing lists for inspiration), and other OSS communities have largely figured out how to separate user/developer communication lines without hiding anything from anyone.
Without further ado...
---
I've been a member of the XDA Developers Forums for a few months, and after following development forums for various phones (mostly the Nexus S and the HTC Thunderbolt forums), I've concluded that the XDA Developers forums suck. Perhaps an even stronger claim is that the Android developer community sucks, but I won't be defending that claim in this post.
So, why do the XDA Developers forums suck?
For one, the purpose of the forums is to centralize discussion and cooperation of development projects for Android. Based on what I've seen so far on the Nexus S and Thunderbolt forums, I believe that the forums have largely failed at this task. ROM's are largely developed independently with about over half of the ROMs maybe sharing source code to the community, with the biggest offender being CM7 for Thunderbolt (the source code for most of the OS is shared to the public, but the most important part that adds support for the Thunderbolt's radio will not be open sourced "until it's done.") Worse, there's a lot of prima donnas in the community - in most other dev communities, most of the work is done in teams, though there may be benevolent dictators or celebrities (but almost none of the things that are present in the XDA community - witholding of source code and "heroism.") As much as slayher has contributed to the community, it's telling when you see CM7 on Thunderbolt completely contingent on him finishing his radio interface layer code, and having to go to a channel called #slayher for CM7 Thunderbolt support. Who the **** creates a channel based on their handle for a software project?
Not only that, but the discussion that does take place on the forums around development is almost always centered on end user support. Many other communities solve this with mailing lists in order to help focus branching topics in a thread (most forums are notoriously bad at this, given that the default view in most forums and the way that a forum focuses your conversation often defaults to a flat hierarchy of posts.) Any relevant developer discussion is drowned in a sea of user support questions, and I would not blame anyone who wishes to take their conversation elsewhere.
What I propose as an alternative is the following:
* A site that is an aggregate of mailing lists for various phones, software projects associated with each phone, etc.
* User support may be provided on this same site on forums, like how XDA is setup right now. The only difference is that dev discussion is separated into mailing lists (and make it crystal clear that any developer related discussion should be posted on the mailing lists.)
* This site should not post anything that doesn't have any source code freely available under the GPL/BSD/Apache/etc. licenses.
EDIT: There's a couple of things I want to address:
"Why are you complaining? The developers put a lot of time into making these ROM's!"
I'm not complaining about the devs creating software - in fact, I recognize that they've put a lot of hard work in writing these ROM's. However, there's a problem with how development is done: there's a lot of cowboys in the community who bring out the "I have a family" card when they don't try to avail themselves of responsibility by releasing their code and letting others contribute in a meaningful way. In a lot of other OSS projects, there's not a lot of that going on - people contribute, things are documented, and there's a process to merge changes in.
I want to contribute to the CM7 Thunderbolt project, but the outstanding issues largely have to do with the RIL code, which is not even available!
"Why don't you develop your own ROM?"
Because my expertise isn't squarely in Android development. I'd rather contribute fixes to a project in order to get myself acquainted, then maybe I can think about developing my own ROM.
Linus' Law: "given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow."
im sure people have reasons for what they do. prepare to be flamed.
Sent from my ADR6400L using XDA Premium App
If you think CM is doing is wrong then hold Google to the same standard. They release their code when they think it's ready. This also applies to Linux, and Mozilla. Get off your high horse. It's impatient people like you that makes the community the way it is.
Sent from my DROID X2 using Tapatalk
Patience is a virtue guess that's something you never heard in your life. But yeah cool story bro...
I'm not saying I agree with Google's model, either. In fact, I think Google's sense of "open" kind of sucks, from the POV of someone who contributes to a lot of OSS projects (not large contributions mind you, but contributions nonetheless.) I patch things, they get merged into trunk, and the group agrees to cut a release once it's ready. This is different from waiting on one guy to release code "when it's ready" so people can contribute - it's frustrating, because everyone knows how busy he is (and, understandably, people want to help out to get things done faster *and* not have him be the sole person to go to), yet he keeps his cards close to his chest at all times for an OSS project.
Only the kernel is FOSS (GPL), and you have a legitimate complaint there. The Android community does a very poor job of making modified source available.
OTOH, the rest is (mostly) Apache license, so there's no requirement for releasing modified source. It's against the general spirit of things, but legitimate.
There are also a lot of prima donnas around. The ability to modify some header files and compile a kernel, or to do a cosmetic re-skin doesn't make one a "developer." The changes made simply don't rise to that level.
You've had some extremely productive posts, all 11 of them are filled with wonderful contributions...thank you!
There's more than just him working on it. He may be the lead, but he isn't the only one working. If you don't like it that way you can easily get the AOSP and do it your way. There is no one stopping you. If your way is truly better you should be able to go ahead of the pace CM is doing.
Sent from my DROID X2 using Tapatalk
So because your experience with the Thunderbolt and Nexus S forums has sucked, you think you can group all of XDA together? And anyone is welcome to help Slayher if they want or can, I'm sure if you just ask he'd be more than happy to have some help.
And unless you are going to go help him with this,no one cares what you think.
hey dude. your a noob.
STFU until you know what your talking about.
Nuff said.
mike.s said:
Only the kernel is FOSS (GPL), and you have a legitimate complaint there. The Android community does a very poor job of making modified source available.
OTOH, the rest is (mostly) Apache license, so there's no requirement for releasing modified source. It's against the general spirit of things, but legitimate.
There are also a lot of prima donnas around. The ability to modify some header files and compile a kernel, or to do a cosmetic re-skin doesn't make one a "developer." The changes made simply don't rise to that level.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks - this is the first reasonable post so far.
The spirit is what I'm mostly arguing for - I want to see an open development spirit that's adopted by most GPL projects, whether or not it's an Apache/BSD/GPL/etc. open source license.
I know, you're not legally bound to share your code, but for the sake of the overall community, it'd benefit *everyone*, including other ROM authors, to open code, even if it's not done. Why? So others can help your project out, and so you don't have to stress out all of the time on a free project.
merc248 said:
but the most important part that adds support for the Thunderbolt's radio will not be open sourced "until it's done.")
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you have really done OSS development in the past, then you should know what some parts of code are held back until they're done. It keeps people from unnecessarily forking a project and watering it down or doing more harm than good (people complaining something doesn't work [because they will as they do]). Slayher doesnt do all the work. Again, if you follow the OSS community, CM has a similar relationship as the Linux Kernel itself does. One guy is the top figurehead of the project (Slayher for CM and Linus for Linux). However, each has many other people that contribute and add to the development (just go look at the code repository for CM and see who's committing, it's not just Slayher). Basically it just comes down to Slayer has final say on things, just as Linus does for Linux.
merc248 said:
A site that is an aggregate of mailing lists for various phones, software projects associated with each phone, etc.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Mailing lists? What are we in, the 1990s? I suppose we should open up a usenet group while we are at it. That's not a step forward, that's a step backwards. I agree that forums aren't really made for bringing together discussion and development, but a mailing list is way worse. Perhaps the biggest contributer to the forums being as they are is the forum software, vbulletin. It's not exactly the easiest thing in the world to mod and extend, just from my own experience of using it. For example, the presentation layer of it and css files are all stored within the database with no easy way to access besides some horrible gui that no developer would really want to use. You can force it to dump out the css and use the files for modification, but to modify the other parts of the presentation (xhtml, xml, etc), you have a much harder time doing.
merc248 said:
This site should not post anything that doesn't have any source code freely available under the GPL/BSD/Apache/etc. licenses.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So I guess we should throw out the forums discussing the iphone, windows phone and such, since those devices use things not under open source licenses. Even android kernel is not totally open source (the drivers have some binary blobs). The first phone with a totally open source kernel just came out (samsung galaxy s2).
I am by no means an android guru (and I make mistakes) and I am learning everyday, but I can say that you don't have all the answers and the ones you have, don't really seem to solve much.
yareally said:
If you have really done OSS development in the past, then you should know what some parts of code are held back until they're done. It keeps people from unnecessarily forking a project and watering it down or doing more harm than good (people complaining something doesn't work [because they will as they do]).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You know what I say in that case? **** the complainers. Open the code and accept patches from anyone who has not only followed the guidelines that you've set for your project, but also actually fix whatever bug (for the very tiny amount of OSS code I've written from scratch, I usually accept any reasonable pull requests - a lot of larger projects I've seen usually require a ticket in JIRA or Redmine.)
Slayher doesnt do all the work. Again, if you follow the OSS community, CM has a similar relationship as the Linux Kernel itself does. One guy is the top figurehead of the project (Slayher for CM and Linus for Linux). However, each has many other people that contribute and add to the development (just go look at the code repository for CM and see who's committing, it's not just Slayher). Basically it just comes down to Slayer has final say on things, just as Linus does for Linux.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That, I didn't know. The way it's presented, it sounds like slayher and very few other people are usually the ones credited with all of the work, but to be honest, it sounds like slayher is doing all of the work (and given that the RIL code is not even open sourced yet, I'm not convinced that anyone else is really working on *that*.) In that case, how would I figure out what outstanding bugs are in the CM7 build? Any small bugs that a junior dev would be able to tackle?
Mailing lists? What are we in, the 1990s? I suppose we should open up a usenet group while we are at it. That's not a step forward, that's a step backwards. I agree that forums aren't really made for bringing together discussion and development, but a mailing list is way worse. Perhaps the biggest contributer to the forums being as they are is the forum software, vbulletin. It's not exactly the easiest thing in the world to mod and extend, just from my own experience of using it. For example, the presentation layer of it and css files are all stored within the database with no easy way to access besides some horrible gui that no developer would really want to use. You can force it to dump out the css and use the files for modification, but to modify the other parts of the presentation (xhtml, xml, etc), you have a much harder time doing.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I only bring up mailing lists because they do one thing really really well: threading. Google Groups is a nice middle ground, since it provides an email interface, plus you can search for stuff pretty easily on a web frontend.
The other site I've seen that does comment threads really well is Reddit - I don't think it's feasible, however, for software development teams to use Reddit as a means of communication.
So I guess we should throw out the forums discussing the iphone, windows phone and such, since those devices use things not under open source licenses. Even android kernel is not totally open source (the drivers have some binary blobs). The first phone with a totally open source kernel just came out (samsung galaxy s2).
I am by no means an android guru (and I make mistakes) and I am learning everyday, but I can say that you don't have all the answers and the ones you have, don't really seem to solve much.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No, absolutely not! In fact, the forums should stay - I'm saying that to coordinate actual development work, mailing lists/Google Groups/whatever should be used instead, paired with something like Github or whatever. For example, it's confusing as hell to go through the single CM7 thread to find any relevant information concerning actual development - there's sometimes disperate threads here and there about workarounds that people have found, but it's incredibly confusing to follow sometimes.
merc248 said:
That, I didn't know. The way it's presented, it sounds like slayher and very few other people are usually the ones credited with all of the work, but to be honest, it sounds like slayher is doing all of the work (and given that the RIL code is not even open sourced yet, I'm not convinced that anyone else is really working on *that*.) In that case, how would I figure out what outstanding bugs are in the CM7 build? Any small bugs that a junior dev would be able to tackle?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm sure they would be glad to accept and review any patches contributed. Anyone can submit code, but it has to be reviewed and approved.
http://wiki.cyanogenmod.com/index.php?title=Howto:_Use_the_Issue_Tracker
http://code.google.com/p/cyanogenmod/issues/list (issue tracker)
http://review.cyanogenmod.com/#q,status:open,n,z (code review)
http://wiki.cyanogenmod.com/index.php?title=Howto:_Gerrit (how to post patches for review)
Cyanogen also has forums btw, not just a channel for help and support:
http://forum.cyanogenmod.com/
I really think you should review the CM community a bit closer. It seems like you didn't really examine it overly deep (I found all the links except the code review/forum with a 5 minute google search; the code review link I was aware of before just from my own browsing).
Also, if you really want to blame someone for the RIL issues, blame HTC, since they didnt give the source to the RIL on the phone (nor do they give the source to any of the changes they make to the android framework and htc sense).
Just random info on how the RIL is implimented on android. Android source comes with a generic one for GSM (3g and before) and then vendors just extend it for their own needs.
http://www.kandroid.org/online-pdk/guide/telephony.html
tl;dr
cool story bro...
Thanks for the links - I do know that CM has a set of forums, but didn't know they had an issue tracker and a code review site.
However, a search on the issue tracker turned up one result for Thunderbolt:
http://code.google.com/p/cyanogenmo...on Model Network Owner Summary Stars Priority
... with a comment on the bottom offering no support for the TBolt until it's actually merged in CM7.
Argh. :\
g00s3y said:
tl;dr
cool story bro...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
{
"lightbox_close": "Close",
"lightbox_next": "Next",
"lightbox_previous": "Previous",
"lightbox_error": "The requested content cannot be loaded. Please try again later.",
"lightbox_start_slideshow": "Start slideshow",
"lightbox_stop_slideshow": "Stop slideshow",
"lightbox_full_screen": "Full screen",
"lightbox_thumbnails": "Thumbnails",
"lightbox_download": "Download",
"lightbox_share": "Share",
"lightbox_zoom": "Zoom",
"lightbox_new_window": "New window",
"lightbox_toggle_sidebar": "Toggle sidebar"
}
...Sorry. I found it and couldn't resist.
+1 for mailing lists suck. I chuckled at the "why not just start up a usenet group" joke/comment.
Seems like there are a lot of other Android forums a guy could visit, if he doesn't like this one.
Just one of my thoughts on developers...
Developers of apps and such have brought us some really useful creations that allow us to personalize our Android devices in almost anyway we desire. They spend countless hours, months, or even years developing these things which they give to us for our use.
While we use these creations, we find a bug or think of a new implementation for it. Now a developer will get new feature requests and choose to not make those changes because they have no time, not enough demand, or there's just no plan for it. On the other hand, we find a bug in it. We bring it to their attention and there's a chance that it will be fixed, maybe soon or in a later update. Maybe it doesn't get fixed but it still runs fairly well.
But what the unresponsive developers who basically make their apps for a quick buck and then the project is dead? Or the ones who don't listen to the supporters of their app at all? I know there's no obligation to listen to thoughts of the consumer but shouldn't the developer at least pay attention and be somewhat responsive?
Any thoughts/comments/disagreements/criticisms/hate on this are welcome.
Jamin13 said:
Just one of my thoughts on developers...
Developers of apps and such have brought us some really useful creations that allow us to personalize our Android devices in almost anyway we desire. They spend countless hours, months, or even years developing these things which they give to us for our use.
While we use these creations, we find a bug or think of a new implementation for it. Now a developer will get new feature requests and choose to not make those changes because they have no time, not enough demand, or there's just no plan for it. On the other hand, we find a bug in it. We bring it to their attention and there's a chance that it will be fixed, maybe soon or in a later update. Maybe it doesn't get fixed but it still runs fairly well.
But what the unresponsive developers who basically make their apps for a quick buck and then the project is dead? Or the ones who don't listen to the supporters of their app at all? I know there's no obligation to listen to thoughts of the consumer but shouldn't the developer at least pay attention and be somewhat responsive?
Any thoughts/comments/disagreements/criticisms/hate on this are welcome.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I guess we are lucky in that the majority of Developers in the community are not demanding of donations or the 'quick buck'. Most do it to tinker in their spare time, to prove that it can be done, and to feed their passion. They are then gracious enough to share their works with us, everyday Joes, for nil thought of monetary gain (again, mostly).
It disheartens me greatly that the overwhelming majority of users now make the most ridiculous demands of Developers, expect a full-blown 'retail (bug-less)' experience, then have the gall to call Developers out if they decide to move away from the project, hit a brick wall or even just go to sleep!
Unfortunately I have even seen the odd Developer involved in this sort of behaviour, and it's certainly not limited to Junior members either, not by a long shot
These guys don't get paid, they're (generally) doing the best they can with what they've got, and they share with us out of their own goodwill. We use and try these things at our own risk. It's printed in big red letters at the top of most ROM threads these days, for good reason
With the onset of the 'smartphone revolution', it's amazing to read through a 50-page thread and watch how many people ask for each and every feature in a 'CWM flashable zip' because they can't, or won't, read through a few pages, or even do a search. I'd wager a fair few wouldn't even know what a Command Prompt or Fastboot was. These kids are flashing whatever looks 'cool' to their devices without so much as a clue to what it does (other than OMG an extra 0.1GHz! - example only), then expecting everyone else to pull them out of the **** when it goes pear-shaped ('I need flashable zip for...'), and having a bit of a go if something doesn't work, rather than sitting back and waiting for it to get past version 0.1.
I have great sympathy for Developers today, as they don't have a hope in Hell of keeping on top of this, nor keeping up with the ridiculous demands.
Even if we make a donation, it does not entitle us to any more support than the regular user who just hits the 'Thanks' button, or even just silently downloads and uses. It's called a donation for a reason. This is a community based on goodwill and sharing, although some days it certainly doesn't look that way.
I've bored you long enough Thankyou for asking the question and giving me the opportunity to share my thoughts. Remember, the Developers are the lifeblood of this community, and (thankfully) bad eggs among them are quite rare.
Take care.
juzz86 said:
I guess we are lucky in that the majority of Developers in the community are not demanding of donations or the 'quick buck'. Most do it to tinker in their spare time, to prove that it can be done, and to feed their passion. They are then gracious enough to share their works with us, everyday Joes, for nil thought of monetary gain (again, mostly).
It disheartens me greatly that the overwhelming majority of users now make the most ridiculous demands of Developers, expect a full-blown 'retail (bug-less)' experience, then have the gall to call Developers out if they decide to move away from the project, hit a brick wall or even just go to sleep!
Unfortunately I have even seen the odd Developer involved in this sort of behaviour, and it's certainly not limited to Junior members either, not by a long shot
These guys don't get paid, they're (generally) doing the best they can with what they've got, and they share with us out of their own goodwill. We use and try these things at our own risk. It's printed in big red letters at the top of most ROM threads these days, for good reason
With the onset of the 'smartphone revolution', it's amazing to read through a 50-page thread and watch how many people ask for each and every feature in a 'CWM flashable zip' because they can't, or won't, read through a few pages, or even do a search. I'd wager a fair few wouldn't even know what a Command Prompt or Fastboot was. These kids are flashing whatever looks 'cool' to their devices without so much as a clue to what it does (other than OMG an extra 0.1GHz! - example only), then expecting everyone else to pull them out of the **** when it goes pear-shaped ('I need flashable zip for...'), and having a bit of a go if something doesn't work, rather than sitting back and waiting for it to get past version 0.1.
I have great sympathy for Developers today, as they don't have a hope in Hell of keeping on top of this, nor keeping up with the ridiculous demands.
Even if we make a donation, it does not entitle us to any more support than the regular user who just hits the 'Thanks' button, or even just silently downloads and uses. It's called a donation for a reason. This is a community based on goodwill and sharing, although some days it certainly doesn't look that way.
I've bored you long enough Thankyou for asking the question and giving me the opportunity to share my thoughts. Remember, the Developers are the lifeblood of this community, and (thankfully) bad eggs among them are quite rare.
Take care.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No problem, always nice to know others thoughts on an idea.
There are the dedicated devs who do spend vast amounts of time on their work and everyone (most everyone anyway) are quite appreciative of it. I'm more concerned with devs, whether new or old, just maybe responding. Not just toward reasonable (or ludicrous) requests but just a general question. I wouldn't look for them to respond to everyone who does ask something though, they would be there for days.
I'm just trying to port a recovery for my phone and cannot get a response from any of those respected and revered devs that have done all the work on those recoveries. I've done my fair share of Googling and asking around here and still have not been able to make any progress on it. There was one member who has been lending a hand but other than him, I haven't gotten any other responses.
It sounded like the first post was more about app devs and the second was about rom devs...
I was just talking about devs in general, not any specific kind. Could be ROMs, could be Apps, people will still ask for more and more and pester until they get what they want or until the developer gets fed up and: makes the changes, stops responding, or gets run off.
Just curious what everyone's opinion is on this.
When I got my first android phone in 2010, a Samsung Fascinate, it seemed to be a burgeoning scene with the developers doing dev'ing for the fun of it and getting rewarded by an appreciative end user.
Fast forward nine months and I am ready for 4g so I slap down my $600 for a charge and watch a molasses like and seemingly dormant dev scene.
There is excuse after excuse as to why the scene is quiet and then there is wind of an "in development" ICS ROM. This is put forth via twitter and then shows up on XDA not even by the developer mind you and everyone gets excited and is flooding said dev with donations on a ROM he labels "the most unsupported ROM ever" and proceeds to let it sit due to the same reason the phone has not had any real attention all along; no RIL code.
When said dev is called on about putting something out labelled "unsupported" and then has the gall to say donate to me(which the dev or mods remove from the thread) if you want the work finished; is this acceptable behaviour?
I am not an end user who is unappreciative and expecting of a dev's work.
I do play with some of the custom stuff for fun on occasion but always come back to stock.
You can keep the simple petty rhetoric that typically ensues to yourself. I am entitled to my $600 phone and that is what I use. Not anyone's work on the forums or IRC! If I do use anything I will test for problems and report back before jumping back to stock and pass along a gesture of appreciation.
Now that I have hopefully made you understand my intentions and absolve anyone of the typical schoolyard bashing that frequents these hallowed walls, is it acceptable for a dev to whip together a ROM that is useless and collect money on it from all of the hopeful and anticipating end users that will not realize an end product?
Especially now that manufacturers are pumping out new phones at an alarming rate that a new phone will be in the shadows every six months.
Thoughts?
Just allow electronic Darwinism to take its course! If someone is taking the piss, they'll soon die out, if people use common sense and don't encourage them
Most devs that I see, Or rather use ROMS from are quite active and very supportive and NEVER even spoke anything about donation. I was happy to donate for a few of them coz it is really worth it.
I think this opinion you speak of might have been due to your ill luck or some pretty bad devs you have encountered.
I'm not saying you are wrong but I'm saying that your prespective might be due to a unlucky or bad dev (one bad apple) incident.
As far as my phone the Desire Hd is concerned, the developers are still just as helpful and enthusiastic as ever.
There is no developer like a bad or good developer, its because of them 99% of people are using roms without donating, 1 % donates to developers
I know a lot of developer who work on projects for free, but even the developers out there like to drink a beer paid from their projects
-> Donations are welcome!
Well,a developer who makes something for XDA and then actually tries to sell it is a downright asshole.Pardon the word,but it's the most accurate description I can give.
This is a community of developers,for developers to share their work.Users are more like guests,who get to use everything for free and just help developers by pointing out flaws in their work.Users enjoy developers' work and developers make their work better constantly,because they want to.No one forced them or employed them here.But then again,it's only right that we should donate to them sometimes.They donate their free time and put large efforts for what's done here,so it's a fair "exchange".But that's it.Donating is optional,as it should be and as is right.The "developers" who try to sell their work here are in the wrong place.
Generally,the better the work,the more donations they will get,so actually instead of asking for money they could just make something better than what's already available and money will come.
We aren't fools who expect everyone to selflessly give us their work in this world,but for Christ's sake,at least pretend that you're selfless!
Anyway,this is in no way an attack or rant against developers,but rather to those self-called developers who exploit the community spirit for their gains.True developers,as most here are I hope,are more than just respected here.
tolis626 said:
Well,a developer who makes something for XDA and then actually tries to sell it is a downright asshole.Pardon the word,but it's the most accurate description I can give.
This is a community of developers,for developers to share their work.Users are more like guests,who get to use everything for free and just help developers by pointing out flaws in their work.Users enjoy developers' work and developers make their work better constantly,because they want to.No one forced them or employed them here.But then again,it's only right that we should donate to them sometimes.They donate their free time and put large efforts for what's done here,so it's a fair "exchange".But that's it.Donating is optional,as it should be and as is right.The "developers" who try to sell their work here are in the wrong place.
Generally,the better the work,the more donations they will get,so actually instead of asking for money they could just make something better than what's already available and money will come.
We aren't fools who expect everyone to selflessly give us their work in this world,but for Christ's sake,at least pretend that you're selfless!
Anyway,this is in no way an attack or rant against developers,but rather to those self-called developers who exploit the community spirit for their gains.True developers,as most here are I hope,are more than just respected here.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So developers on xda-developers are not allowed to sell software now? There's actually a forum dedicated to paid software, so you're wrong.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/forumdisplay.php?f=993
Archer said:
So developers on xda-developers are not allowed to sell software now? There's actually a forum dedicated to paid software, so you're wrong.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/forumdisplay.php?f=993
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Developers should be able to sell software they created, for example; applications, scripts, hell even mods that don't include any work from someone else. In my opinion this shouldn't include ROMs, why? Because with the possible exception of building completely from source, you are essentially selling modifications of someone else's software. Especially when you include proprietary drivers and software. Touchscreen drivers, camera drivers, audio drivers, radio drivers and the like in many cases are proprietary and licensed to be resold only by the maker of the device. Receiving donations for development is questionable at best, demanding donations for development is basically selling software you don't have rights to sell.
I think one of the reason I've previously seen mods block these sort of attempts is because it creates a legal issue for XDA itself. Plus you have people who donated but developers wanting more and the person who donated feel cheated.
Thankfully I haven't seen a lot of this in the Evo3D forums, I have seen a lot of RESPECT THE GPL immediately after DON'T EVEN LOOK AT MY CODE when half their code is kanged from someone else's hard work. Usually though, people start getting annoyed and those roms start to die off.
Or you have the case with Chad.Goodman, where he writes decent stuff on his own and people get annoyed by that and contact beats & qualcomm all while they release 'beats' mods on their own stuff. (which still doesn't make any sense to me)
Cabe24i said:
Developers should be able to sell software they created, for example; applications, scripts, hell even mods that don't include any work from someone else. In my opinion this shouldn't include ROMs
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I totally agree with that.
Archer said:
I totally agree with that.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As does XDA, hence the rules at present
This is not a platform to make money from. For anyone who cares, I have made a total of £0.00 from XDA. I don't wish to make personal profit from here.
I spend large numbers of hours on the site, doing stuff behind the scenes. If I was to draw up a "bill" for the past year, it would be in the hundreds of thousands of pounds, based on the price I charge for my services.
But I wouldn't ever want to see myself as selling something here. That's not what this site is about! There's plenty of places to sell stuff. If you make your own app, fair enough. If you modify something belonging to someone else, then nope
bwheelies said:
Just curious what everyone's opinion is on this.
When I got my first android phone in 2010, a Samsung Fascinate, it seemed to be a burgeoning scene with the developers doing dev'ing for the fun of it and getting rewarded by an appreciative end user.
Fast forward nine months and I am ready for 4g so I slap down my $600 for a charge and watch a molasses like and seemingly dormant dev scene.
There is excuse after excuse as to why the scene is quiet and then there is wind of an "in development" ICS ROM. This is put forth via twitter and then shows up on XDA not even by the developer mind you and everyone gets excited and is flooding said dev with donations on a ROM he labels "the most unsupported ROM ever" and proceeds to let it sit due to the same reason the phone has not had any real attention all along; no RIL code.
When said dev is called on about putting something out labelled "unsupported" and then has the gall to say donate to me(which the dev or mods remove from the thread) if you want the work finished; is this acceptable behaviour?
I am not an end user who is unappreciative and expecting of a dev's work.
I do play with some of the custom stuff for fun on occasion but always come back to stock.
You can keep the simple petty rhetoric that typically ensues to yourself. I am entitled to my $600 phone and that is what I use. Not anyone's work on the forums or IRC! If I do use anything I will test for problems and report back before jumping back to stock and pass along a gesture of appreciation.
Now that I have hopefully made you understand my intentions and absolve anyone of the typical schoolyard bashing that frequents these hallowed walls, is it acceptable for a dev to whip together a ROM that is useless and collect money on it from all of the hopeful and anticipating end users that will not realize an end product?
Especially now that manufacturers are pumping out new phones at an alarming rate that a new phone will be in the shadows every six months.
Thoughts?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My thoughts? If your main concern was dev scene, why would you get a locked down motorola?
Ok, I have been trolling here for sometime and have seen some devs who ask for donations. However, the vast majority just contribute their time and hard work for the betterment of the platform and the community as a whole.
As for slow development, I think a lot of that has to do with the phone. I have the SGS 2 and there is active development for that with a lot of great roms. My wife has the 4g Slide and the development is slightly slower. It all comes down to the popularity of the phone.
If devs make a product good enough for people to pay for then good for them. On the other hand, if they ask for donations but their software is crap then no one will buy it.
It's a free market, let them try.
It is alot of work and it requires a special skill set to do what devs do, so I can appreciate them asking for a couple bucks for their trouble.
I buy beers/coffee when i see two things..
#1 a good working Rom/ Root / hack /tweak that has a history of upgrades/work/tweaks from the chef.
# 2 the chef is active in the thread, helping others with questions/ issues etc etc..
Archer said:
So developers on xda-developers are not allowed to sell software now? There's actually a forum dedicated to paid software, so you're wrong.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/forumdisplay.php?f=993
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I agree with Cabe24i.See below.
Cabe24i said:
Developers should be able to sell software they created, for example; applications, scripts, hell even mods that don't include any work from someone else. In my opinion this shouldn't include ROMs, why? Because with the possible exception of building completely from source, you are essentially selling modifications of someone else's software. Especially when you include proprietary drivers and software. Touchscreen drivers, camera drivers, audio drivers, radio drivers and the like in many cases are proprietary and licensed to be resold only by the maker of the device. Receiving donations for development is questionable at best, demanding donations for development is basically selling software you don't have rights to sell.
I think one of the reason I've previously seen mods block these sort of attempts is because it creates a legal issue for XDA itself. Plus you have people who donated but developers wanting more and the person who donated feel cheated.
Thankfully I haven't seen a lot of this in the Evo3D forums, I have seen a lot of RESPECT THE GPL immediately after DON'T EVEN LOOK AT MY CODE when half their code is kanged from someone else's hard work. Usually though, people start getting annoyed and those roms start to die off.
Or you have the case with Chad.Goodman, where he writes decent stuff on his own and people get annoyed by that and contact beats & qualcomm all while they release 'beats' mods on their own stuff. (which still doesn't make any sense to me)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The point isn't whether they are allowed to accept money for their work.They surely should put their creations on sale.And exactly here is where I agree with you.ROMs and kernels aren't their work.As good as someone's modifications can be,it's not new code written by them entirely(except for some patches,etc).While their work is and should be rewarded,it should in no way become mandatory that we pay to use it.It should be optional as it is.It's fair for everyone that way.Those who deserve it will get paid,end of story.
Selling apps on XDA is another story,but it's also completely right to do so,as they could just sell those on the market and be done with it.But it's about applications written anew,not modified ones.Did anyone sell a modified copy of a game?I don't think so.
We should show our appreciation to developers,but they should also show us some respect(I am more than content with what's going on here on the dev side,it's XDA's ungrateful noobs that I'm mad with like most of you here).Fraud is a crime after all.
I can see both sides of that argument actually. Whilst I do think it's unreasonable for a developer to request money for merely tweaking a ROM, it's the same as a painter painting your living room. He's not made you a brand new living room from scratch. He's just painted your existing one. That's similar to a ROM tweaker.
That said, I do understand and abide by the rules - I'm not arguing them. Just playing devil's advocate.
lowandbehold said:
My thoughts? If your main concern was dev scene, why would you get a locked down motorola?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not sure if you are asking me. I have a Droid Charge.
F2504x4 said:
I buy beers/coffee when i see two things..
#1 a good working Rom/ Root / hack /tweak that has a history of upgrades/work/tweaks from the chef.
# 2 the chef is active in the thread, helping others with questions/ issues etc etc..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is one of the best posts I have seen on xda. Judging by this, the developer who posted a no effort ROM in a stagnant phone development scene who says donate and does nothing with the ROM is nothing but a modern day P.T. Barnum.
First of all, you don't have to donate
But I agree with OP it's not done to demand donations to finish work.
If your work is good and you support it well, possibilities for a donation are much higher.
But it is no guarantee for donations.
But isn't respect from others the best payment for your work? That's the reason I do my share for the community
Hello,
I made that account in order write about some things that I’m annoyed of or which I find very alarming. I’m sure there are some other people in here, who feel the same. I think it’s time to change something about it. I know some of you might be not interested in that and many people just want to get CM12 as fast as possible. This people should maybe not take part of this. To each man his own. I do understand that but this is about changing CM11 to a REAL “Daily Driver”, where everything works right and stable (at least the device-independent things).
This is about the following:
For many mobile phones like the well known Samsung Galaxy Models will be a Kitkat for real the last “halfway functioning” system. Also there has been put a lot of work into CM11, which a have a lot of respect for. Newly Cyanogenmod got a company and as such this Custom Rom is totally different than others – which do their work completely non-paid and voluntary e.g. Omnirom. As a company you have, except of making a lot of money, some responsibilities. You have to place a working product on the marked and I appeal here and today for calling in this responsibility or rather to introduce CM to move form there previous “Kindergarden” to a CM11 which is made perfect. After all Cyanogenmod as a company benefits of us using CM11 (the Community/Open source Project) on your mobile phones. We users are the best Beta-Testers and if CM just doesn’t fix bugs it is not better than Samsung.
Everyday we are complaining about producers like Samsung, because they e.g. do not bring out a 4.4 for the S3. But they at least perform their obligations somehow and continue improving and fixing 4.3. Anyway it (mostly) gets a real functioning product. CM should be interested in satisfying us with this/their product (CM11/s; Oneplus one). Even if we don’t actually have Oneplus one now we are ALL potential, future costumers! And nearby the most buy a Oneplus one BECAUSE they feel confident with CM and their Android Rom! Unfortunately in reality CM11 is far away from real stability and I don’t mean features, which are hardwarenear and sources for drivers like the S3 camera are needed, but completely normal features in the system.
If you only use a few Apps a few times then the current CM11 will work for you and it is usable, but as soon as you need something which is rarely used or which is more complicated you will find bugs. Although, this could be different.
I think it’s shocking that I often read when people are swearing “why should we want Android 5.0 if not even Android 4.4 is working stable!” (Look at the people from N7000, who have not even a M-Release from CM11). But no one is doing anything against it. CM should know that there are people who want stability! Please note that I’m talking about device-independent features. Especially because CM11 current is the BASIS for the CM11S, which is the system for Oneplus one! But what does the community see? The “CM12 roadmap” in which they are talking about: “freezing” CM11 and focusing on CM12. No, that can’t be. Every lifeblood-Custom-Rom maybe could get away with that (even Omni tries to go on with 4.4 for older devices as a “long-term-project”), but no new, real organization. Some may argument and say that with CM10.2 it has been the same, that with the first Nightlys or in general at the beginning of CM11 the final has been there after a very short time, but CM 10.2 as we all know, from past developers who left CM and now work for Omnirom, never had gone through as a stable. They just wanted it to seem like that in order to get sponsors and to show with the statistics, which CM introduced at that time, how many people already use CM. And the i9300 practically is the most used device in that case!
I have posted this post on November the 22nd 2014(as abruptly the Nightlys from CM11 stood still) in a German Android Forum. On the 24th of November 2014 all the Nightlys suddenly worked again, but if you look at the most Changes you could think that CM had not interest in creating a stable OS or a really stable CM and they are only trying to make it seem like they would still work on that. (Changes like the design template file or adjusting readmes).
Nevertheless there are still many bugs and some elementary features are missing! That can’t be. The worst is, that CM doesn’t get things straight for the community. I can understand if the creators don’t want to have any pressure because many people are asking for appointments but at least they should get the things straight concerning if and how long CM11 should be supported! ESPECIALLY if CM bet on that with their Oneplus One!
I have started to work on this on November the 22nd 2014 and reported about 40 bugs and maybe needed but simply to integrate features in the CM Bugtracker JIRA. I commit that I have never done this before. I do have enough other things to do and I always thought the creators would take care of that or anyone else would report the problem. But apparently this won’t happen. In order to prohibit a fiasco like CM10.2, should we all take care of it NOW!
I will post a list of bugs and eventually some useful and first of all realisable features in the course of this theme. Some of them I already have reported –but the most of them have been closed again. One of them was a appeal to CM and it said that they should get CM11 ready and stable – this Bug of course has been closed immediately and without actual statement.
I want to ask you to vote for all these things. If you have bugs yourself and never have been reported such please make an account on JIRA, it is easy and doesn’t take much time. Even if it’s just in order to vote for my bugs and features later. It would be nice to spread this and the text in JIRA, in other Android / CM-Forums and in social networks in order to have a real group or better sent a link or the post itself to some devs of cyanogenmod so that they are knowing about the problem and can take action on this.
Please don’t see this as agitation or something like that. I have great respect to the creators and their achievements! But CM now is a company and they geared to their (potential) customers. Without us making noise CM will concentrate on CM12 and we all have (again), a half-finished “gerfrickel”-Sytem. Also think that all the improvements in CM will get back to the Custom Roms.
Willingly you can send me your bugs, ideas or suggestions per PM here but better post it here or write it down to the JIRA bugtrakcer. The more, the better!
For so many Smartphones the CM11 is the last thing which they will be seeing more or less stable without an unbelievable reduced battery power. If we don’t do something now, the game will be replayed with CM12. And don’t hope that it will be different there. A really STABLE Custom Rom – that is missing somehow. That’s at least what I think and if read in the forums now, there are many others who think the same…
I hope on active cooperation, feedbacks and opinions on that and ask for not deleting this thread but eventually moving it to the right place (maybe a seperate section about android in general?) and make it sticky for all people to see. I hope we can find some way here to CM changing his mind about working on their custom rom and supporting CM11 for some time until it's a really stable product (maybe until first or second “stable” M-release of CM12 is out). If you want a stable CM11, please write it down here!:good::victory:
BTW: I am from Germany, sorry for my maybe bad English.
Chris
Stability depends on device. CM11 is superbly stable on a Nexus 4 or 5, but could be extremely buggy on some random cheap Chinese phone bought from aliexpress because lots of people use and develop for Nexuses, but only a handful of people will be working on that Chinese one. There are also often hardware issues.
Thanks for your reply, i totally agree with you but if you have rightly read my topic you can read that I dont write about device specific features. If I can reproduce a handfull bugs everytime, on every CM11 rom, than that are real bugs on which CM should take care. I will also show some here but I need time to tanslate it here and to write it.
I also totally agree if a device have no maintainer it cant be tested and made fully working - but the problem most of the time is that there are A LOT of people who make their own kernels, own custom roms on base of CM11 and they COULD be maintainer of the device but dont want it or cant do it because of CM itself. If you look how CM is treating the people and not comunicate with them you will understand why there is a lack of maintainer and so many people which COULD be a maintainer because of the knowledge. But that is a other topic. CM need to change his way to talk with the community. If there are bugs, which are easy to reproduce and they will be reported to bugtracker and CM is closing it because the log is not attached, because the reporter CANT BRINGT IT, BUT the bug can be EASILY reproduced WITHOUT A LOG, than it is CMs fault. People want to help and they (CM) close the bugreports. It should be in their interest to test every bugreport to MAYBE find a potential bug. Also look at the bugtracker, there are issues which were reported for years and CM dont care about it. Look for the lack of using the calendar without a google account for example. On the other hand side: They add features which nobody wanted to have and mostly the people dont use. where is ther sense here?
Personally, I quit using any cm or cm based ROMs on my nexus because it seemed to lack speed and stability compared to stock or aosp based ROMs.
I had better luck with early custom lollipop ROMs than with cm. Right now I'm using slimkat until black themed lollipop ROMs are stable and bug free.
So basically, I agree that cm should be more stable. But I don't really care cause there are lots of good options out there instead of cm.
Sent from my Nexus 5 using XDA Free mobile app
Ow mannnnn .. Thank you so much !!! you are pro !!!
Well first thing is that bugs happen when you use open source drivers and software. This is because it is not coded just for a single device like the OEM drivers and software is.
Second CM is not required to do anything. That includes fixing bugs that they don't care about.
Next. And to be flatly honest they have no reason to talk to the community. Can't blame them as most have nothing more productive to say then "duh this is busted" why talk to those people when you can talk to people that can offer advise and maybe help salve an issue. Nor are they required to post any update at all.
Devs have the right to post a build in the OP and never post support, leaving all support up to the user's.
It doesn't matter if you can produce the error. They have their rules about posting bug reports. If you don't follow them and it gets closed without it even being looked at well then that's your fault.
If you want stable then stay stock. Or learn to fix it yourself. There is no obligation for anyone to even touch aosp based code. Even Google has most stopped updating those apps and files.
Now as for you saying device independent issues. The issue here is that one device could be rebooting every ten min but other devices don't do it.
The only device as a company they need to worry about is the one that sells with their roms. All others are hobby projects and treated as such.
zelendel said:
Well first thing is that bugs happen when you use open source drivers and software. This is because it is not coded just for a single device like the OEM drivers and software is. .
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Firstly thanks for your feedback
I dont understand what you want to say. If bugs happen and when is not the content of the topic. I am using linux on my workstation and server itself, everyday. (Linus Torvalds is also talking to the people). I know that bugs can happen and open source drivers and software can have bugs. I do not blame people for this. I do respect their work! I blame people for activly ignoring bugs which are easy to fix (atleast for this people) and activly ignoring bugs in addition to don't communicate why they don't care about this bugs which they could easily fix. This is a human fault. I also have written in my text above that I DO NOT MEAN DEVICE SPECIFIC BUGS. So I don't really understand whats your point here, sorry.
zelendel said:
Second CM is not required to do anything. That includes fixing bugs that they don't care about.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, in theory they dont have to do anything. But we are all human. We have a moral commitment. Also I think every group who wants to make their custom rom succesfull, want to make the users happy. If not so, why CM is releasing this to the community? Is it forbidden to say my and many peoples opinion here? If I follow your logic of arguing then we all were not allowed to blame samsung for their bad software and bad support, right? Or specially if something is for free we don't have the right to critisize things? Why? If you create something, you have to count on the fact that people will complain about things. If the people complain with arguments and everyone respect each other that is totally ok in my opinion. If that is too hard for the dev than he should maybe not release his work. So our world is working. Why you argue for a group which doesn't speak to you or here forself? I don't know if you would care about if you were one of those people who wait for years that a bug or improvement is realized which is important for you.
zelendel said:
Next. And to be flatly honest they have no reason to talk to the community. Can't blame them as most have nothing more productive to say then "duh this is busted" why talk to those people when you can talk to people that can offer advise and maybe help salve an issue. Nor are they required to post any update at all.
Devs have the right to post a build in the OP and never post support, leaving all support up to the user's.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
if a human being thinks like this, he should really start to think about himself. It is a very arogant attitude against other people. If a person thinks "I have no reason to talk to you", then I would think this person is not really a nice and good human. People like you describe, they think that they are better than all other and that is not a good attitude. I totaly agree that it is not helpfull if someone says: "duh this is busted", but I and some other people report bugs, want to help, ALSO if they don't have the ability to develvop something on their own. But the point is the following: The people who are only complaining and say: "duh this is busted" are the people for who CM is making a software. They (CM) should care about them. They are mostly the people who BUY their Oneplus one. Why I don't talk to CM itself? You have written it here exactly: They "have no reason to talk to the community". So I am talking to the people here, the commnunity and looking for all this people who don't do anything because they think they are alone, can't do anything. The goal is to give the people of CM a reason to talk to the commnunity. This is a attempt to change their mind about their style of communication. and make CM11 fully stable.
zelendel said:
It doesn't matter if you can produce the error. They have their rules about posting bug reports. If you don't follow them and it gets closed without it even being looked at well then that's your fault.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How easy is live, what? If so, then they should close the bugtracker. I was thinking the bugtracker is for the community to HELP CM finding bugs so that THEY can make the product better. This is an opensource project. They make money with the code at the end in form of "CM11S", which is CM11 + closed source apps. And I also understand that they want to make money with their work now. If an opensource project is making benefit in form of money without the need of beta testers because the community finds the bugs they should be HAPPY. But they do ignore it, they think they are above all. You say they: "dont have to talk to the community". Look for omnirom, look for other projects, they are gracefull if someone find a bug, can reporduce it. The devs can fix it. It makes the software better and better. Samsung has to pay people for this. I totally understand if there is a bug which is to repoduce, the dev test for it, can't find it and order the log in addition from the bugreporer. Thats a real reason. But they (CM) dont read this bug. They dont care. Do you want to say that's a good attitude to the users and the community? I don't think so. We can talk with each other.
zelendel said:
If you want stable then stay stock. Or learn to fix it yourself. There is no obligation for anyone to even touch aosp based code. Even Google has most stopped updating those apps and files.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry, but thats not a real argument. Then we all would be on stock, no one should be allowed to say: "this could be better." That would be a bad world. It is not wrong to expect a stable product. Let it be opensource or propritary. In addition: Not everyone can code something and if so, not everyone has the time to do so. This people have created the maybe most famous custom rom. They SHOULD talk to the people who are using their software, who are all potential customers of their PRODUCT, the oneplus one. The product which makes USE of CM11. So if I am thinking about to buy it, I think about all blame samsung and I think about that CM11 is ignoring user bugreports AND they "don't need to talk to the people". Not a good image, or do your think so? Samsung is not giving 4.4 to the i9300 for example, BUT they make 4.3 better and they make it STABLE and FULL. I don't like samsung for their software and other things, but it is working. But people like CM are blaming them for their support, so me and other people, we have the right to blame CM for THEIR support, or not? Also think about freedom of speech.
What google does is a other thing. Google is also making enough crap and I have also my optionion about it. I also dont install google apps for myself. But google and CM are a different story and thats not the topic of this thread. Also I don't think that it is really nice to say to the people: "Eat what we give you and shut up otherwise you don't have anything.". But you are saying this between the words.
zelendel said:
Now as for you saying device independent issues. The issue here is that one device could be rebooting every ten min but other devices don't do it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I dont understand what is the point here? I have clearly written: "Device independend". I didn't writte about random reboots. I totally agree with you that this are a other sort of problem. But if you tap on a "private number" on dialer/phone statistics and will get a FC, and that on M12 and also on the newest nightly, also on 5 different devices, you report that and the mod of the bugtracker dont care about it and simply lock down the bugreport and the dev team totally IGNORE the problem because no log was added (because maybe the reporter dont have a official supported device because they also close the bugreport if this is not?), but they only had to test what the reporter described, then someone can clearly say two things: First thing is that the bug is easily to reproduce and it is device indepently. And second thing is that the CM team or at least the mod of the bugtracker really DONT CARE about the bug existence if he is simply closing down the bug without looking for it or test to repoduce it and THEN, if it is NOT easily to reproduce, order a log from the bugreporter. We are people, we can talk to each other. There is NO NEED to simply close things down, don't community and at the end write down: "This is CM11 final, look at our bugtracker: there are NO BUGS!". Yes, if you don't care about the bugs people report then yes - it is bugfree. Nice way of make something stable. Like chainfire wrote about CM10.2 to the time he left CM Team.
zelendel said:
The only device as a company they need to worry about is the one that sells with their roms. All others are hobby projects and treated as such.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I agree with you, but have I written something other? I have written nearly the same. CM11 is the basis of CM11S, which is THE SYSTEM THEY SELL on Oneplus one, their PRODUCT.
But in theory if someone, like the creator of "nameless rom". make HW composer working for the i9300 or Teamasek make a camera restart workaround for it and they (CM) DONT CARE about it for example, they know it, people report it. They ignore it. Then something is really wrong here. People like creator of "nameless rom" or Temasek are creating their own custom rom on basis of CM11. They (CM) could easily say: „we have no time, sorry.“ Or: "it is not stable right now, we will wait for it." or simply: „No, we can't do it because....“ Then people totally UNDERSTAND it. But they only say like you said: "We have not to talk to you." nice, nor? Everyone is talking to the people, why they think they don't need that?
And to make it clear here: I am dont fighting against CM, I really like their art of making a rom. I like their software, I want to have and sell my customers a oneplus one if it is out to the global market. I want to make CM better. I dont say look at XXX rom, they make all right, then I could go to a other rom like someone in the thread posted before. I am like this person, but I want to change something and want to help CM so that people dont all leave CM or make their own custom rom. If we would all help us togehter, every device of CM would have a maintainer. The world would be right and nice. But CM makes it to difficult to help. But why? They win, they loose nothing. Let's make them change their mind so that things will get better.
By the way: Oneplus is looking for a other rom for their oneplus one. Also there are articles about: "the flaggschiff killer kills themself". They have problems. CM11/S is not really stable on the oneplus one. Oppo is looking for a other software, CM is working on CM12, it won't make the things better. But CM is building on the oneplus two. It will make it worse. Why all the way begin new and dont make things fully stable? So in theory it would be right to further work on CM11 until it is really stable and also bring the oneplus one on the global market for real and support it some years really. Otherwise they have newest android but it is less stable than software of samsung. If you or anyone else think I am wrong than write that to CM, they can easily write down the facts here in this topic if they care about their users and the most of their further customers. So back to the topic. How can we make things on CM11 better and change CMs mind? chris
XXchrisXX said:
Firstly thanks for your feedback
I dont understand what you want to say. If bugs happen and when is not the content of the topic. I am using linux on my workstation and server itself, everyday. (Linus Torvalds is also talking to the people). I know that bugs can happen and open source drivers and software can have bugs. I do not blame people for this. I do respect their work! I blame people for activly ignoring bugs which are easy to fix (atleast for this people) and activly ignoring bugs in addition to don't communicate why they don't care about this bugs which they could easily fix. This is a human fault. I also have written in my text above that I DO NOT MEAN DEVICE SPECIFIC BUGS. So I don't really understand whats your point here, sorry.
Think its so easy then try it your self. You seem to think anything about this is easy. Until you try to do it yourself you have no room to talk about it being easy.
Yes, in theory they dont have to do anything. But we are all human. We have a moral commitment. Also I think every group who wants to make their custom rom succesfull, want to make the users happy. If not so, why CM is releasing this to the community? Is it forbidden to say my and many peoples opinion here? If I follow your logic of arguing then we all were not allowed to blame samsung for their bad software and bad support, right? Or specially if something is for free we don't have the right to critisize things? Why? If you create something, you have to count on the fact that people will complain about things. If the people complain with arguments and everyone respect each other that is totally ok in my opinion. If that is too hard for the dev than he should maybe not release his work. So our world is working. Why you argue for a group which doesn't speak to you or here forself? I don't know if you would care about if you were one of those people who wait for years that a bug or improvement is realized which is important for you.
You have the right to blame them if you want but then they also have the right not to care. There are many bugs that I have had on AOSP for years. They have not been fixed and I cant fix them so guess what, I dont complain.
if a human being thinks like this, he should really start to think about himself. It is a very arogant attitude against other people. If a person thinks "I have no reason to talk to you", then I would think this person is not really a nice and good human. People like you describe, they think that they are better than all other and that is not a good attitude. I totaly agree that it is not helpfull if someone says: "duh this is busted", but I and some other people report bugs, want to help, ALSO if they don't have the ability to develvop something on their own. But the point is the following: The people who are only complaining and say: "duh this is busted" are the people for who CM is making a software. They (CM) should care about them. They are mostly the people who BUY their Oneplus one. Why I don't talk to CM itself? You have written it here exactly: They "have no reason to talk to the community". So I am talking to the people here, the commnunity and looking for all this people who don't do anything because they think they are alone, can't do anything. The goal is to give the people of CM a reason to talk to the commnunity. This is a attempt to change their mind about their style of communication. and make CM11 fully stable.
A nice and good human? Really?!?! What world do you live in. Alot of the best Devs here are antisocial people. They dont like other people let alone people cant follow simple instructions.
Look People did it themselves. CM used to be active in the community but then people kept doing just what you have stated. Not posting proper bug reports with logs that are needed. (if the dev says post a log with the bug report, this is not an option). The one plus one is a the joke of the Dev world. Most devs already sold theirs and will not go back.
How easy is live, what? If so, then they should close the bugtracker. I was thinking the bugtracker is for the community to HELP CM finding bugs so that THEY can make the product better. This is an opensource project. They make money with the code at the end in form of "CM11S", which is CM11 + closed source apps. And I also understand that they want to make money with their work now. If an opensource project is making benefit in form of money without the need of beta testers because the community finds the bugs they should be HAPPY. But they do ignore it, they think they are above all. You say they: "dont have to talk to the community". Look for omnirom, look for other projects, they are gracefull if someone find a bug, can reporduce it. The devs can fix it. It makes the software better and better. Samsung has to pay people for this. I totally understand if there is a bug which is to repoduce, the dev test for it, can't find it and order the log in addition from the bugreporer. Thats a real reason. But they (CM) dont read this bug. They dont care. Do you want to say that's a good attitude to the users and the community? I don't think so. We can talk with each other.
Yes it is. As long as people follow the proper bug reporting steps. Yeah and if you report some bugs to many devs without the proper logs they will ignore you as well. Many devs are moving over to the bug tracker just like CM and will require the same logs. This is troubleshooting 101. If you cant even get a log then you should rethink using custom roms.
Sorry, but thats not a real argument. Then we all would be on stock, no one should be allowed to say: "this could be better." That would be a bad world. It is not wrong to expect a stable product. Let it be opensource or propritary. In addition: Not everyone can code something and if so, not everyone has the time to do so. This people have created the maybe most famous custom rom. They SHOULD talk to the people who are using their software, who are all potential customers of their PRODUCT, the oneplus one. The product which makes USE of CM11. So if I am thinking about to buy it, I think about all blame samsung and I think about that CM11 is ignoring user bugreports AND they "don't need to talk to the people". Not a good image, or do your think so? Samsung is not giving 4.4 to the i9300 for example, BUT they make 4.3 better and they make it STABLE and FULL. I don't like samsung for their software and other things, but it is working. But people like CM are blaming them for their support, so me and other people, we have the right to blame CM for THEIR support, or not? Also think about freedom of speech.
Ill be honest and this is the thought with alot of Devs. Most normal users SHOULD stay on stock. Saying Samsung is stable is too funny. Most Devs have left those devices all together as well. Once again you dont post the proper and requested logs with the bug reprot expect to be ignored. As for freedom of speech Refer to the link below. Your on a private site. The right doenst apply.
What google does is a other thing. Google is also making enough crap and I have also my optionion about it. I also dont install google apps for myself. But google and CM are a different story and thats not the topic of this thread. Also I don't think that it is really nice to say to the people: "Eat what we give you and shut up otherwise you don't have anything.". But you are saying this between the words.
If your not part of the solution then your part of the problem. And that is with proper bug reports and logs.
I dont understand what is the point here? I have clearly written: "Device independend". I didn't writte about random reboots. I totally agree with you that this are a other sort of problem. But if you tap on a "private number" on dialer/phone statistics and will get a FC, and that on M12 and also on the newest nightly, also on 5 different devices, you report that and the mod of the bugtracker dont care about it and simply lock down the bugreport and the dev team totally IGNORE the problem because no log was added (because maybe the reporter dont have a official supported device because they also close the bugreport if this is not?), but they only had to test what the reporter described, then someone can clearly say two things: First thing is that the bug is easily to reproduce and it is device indepently. And second thing is that the CM team or at least the mod of the bugtracker really DONT CARE about the bug existence if he is simply closing down the bug without looking for it or test to repoduce it and THEN, if it is NOT easily to reproduce, order a log from the bugreporter. We are people, we can talk to each other. There is NO NEED to simply close things down, don't community and at the end write down: "This is CM11 final, look at our bugtracker: there are NO BUGS!". Yes, if you don't care about the bugs people report then yes - it is bugfree. Nice way of make something stable. Like chainfire wrote about CM10.2 to the time he left CM Team.
If the device is not supported then they shouldnt be posting a report at all. Do you have any idea how long it would take to "test" each bug report? The log is much faster and more useful. To many people are installing stupid stuff like xposed that randomly causes code crashs. This is where the logs will show this. If it is bug free on their devices then they can call it bug free. In the end it is all how it runs on their devices.
I agree with you, but have I written something other? I have written nearly the same. CM11 is the basis of CM11S, which is THE SYSTEM THEY SELL on Oneplus one, their PRODUCT.
But in theory if someone, like the creator of "nameless rom". make HW composer working for the i9300 or Teamasek make a camera restart workaround for it and they (CM) DONT CARE about it for example, they know it, people report it. They ignore it. Then something is really wrong here. People like creator of "nameless rom" or Temasek are creating their own custom rom on basis of CM11. They (CM) could easily say: „we have no time, sorry.“ Or: "it is not stable right now, we will wait for it." or simply: „No, we can't do it because....“ Then people totally UNDERSTAND it. But they only say like you said: "We have not to talk to you." nice, nor? Everyone is talking to the people, why they think they don't need that?
If they are basing their rom off of CM then they accept it. People did it themselves. As already stated. You really must be new to this.
And to make it clear here: I am dont fighting against CM, I really like their art of making a rom. I like their software, I want to have and sell my customers a oneplus one if it is out to the global market. I want to make CM better. I dont say look at XXX rom, they make all right, then I could go to a other rom like someone in the thread posted before. I am like this person, but I want to change something and want to help CM so that people dont all leave CM or make their own custom rom. If we would all help us togehter, every device of CM would have a maintainer. The world would be right and nice. But CM makes it to difficult to help. But why? They win, they loose nothing. Let's make them change their mind so that things will get better.
To be honest alot of people couldnt careless about CM. Any real team uses aosp as a base and not CM. This is due to CM changing the base AOSP code to fit what they think android should be. To me it sounds like you have a device that was dropped by the team and are now mad about it.
By the way: Oneplus is looking for a other rom for their oneplus one. Also there are articles about: "the flaggschiff killer kills themself". They have problems. CM11/S is not really stable on the oneplus one. Oppo is looking for a other software, CM is working on CM12, it won't make the things better. But CM is building on the oneplus two. It will make it worse. Why all the way begin new and dont make things fully stable? So in theory it would be right to further work on CM11 until it is really stable and also bring the oneplus one on the global market for real and support it some years really. Otherwise they have newest android but it is less stable than software of samsung. If you or anyone else think I am wrong than write that to CM, they can easily write down the facts here in this topic if they care about their users and the most of their further customers. So back to the topic. How can we make things on CM11 better and change CMs mind? chris
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Once again CM has not posted here in years. AOSP will never be completely stable. Deal with it. and a news flash the oneplusone 2 will not have CM. They have already signed a contract exclusive in some places with another company.
Now to end this. Here is a link. Have a good read.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=16682226&postcount=2441
Ok so I've read the cluster that is your post @XXchrisXX and I have to say a few things
First off, I'm probably the last person you would ever see saying anything remotely nice about CM but what's right is right....
1. There is no moral commitment or obligation or ANYTHING that CM (the open source side of things) has to follow. You are getting a FREE product. In exchange your feedback may or may not be useful to the developers and device maintainers. You signed no contract. You didn't agree to anything with CyanogenMod or any of it's developers or maintainers. XDA-Developers is and always has been a AT-YOUR-OWN-RISK type of site.
As stated above, you can stick with the stock ROM from the OEM if you want stability and some kind of warranty.
2. There are two different sides of CM. There is the open source side which is what you're griping about and then there's the company, CM Inc.
One is run by volunteers and hundreds of contributors (Open Source side) and the other one is run by employees who are under contract (CM Inc). Don't confuse the two and think that you can hold the open source side to the same things you hold the company to.
Do many employees from CM Inc. contribute to the Open Source side? Yes, but that is a hobby. You want a warranty and someone to yell at for not fixing bugs? Go buy a One Plus One and get you a warranty, simple as that!
3. Who are you to tell them (the Open Source side of CM) what they can and can't do? You should be lucky that your device is even supported by CM or any AOSP based custom ROM.
You talk about Samsung and other OEMs but what you fail to realize is that most OEMs give you a one and done. They give you kitkat and that's it.........they TOO move on to bigger and better things.
Don't be foolish here and think that your device that's 3 years old is going to run KitKat like a champ. You say you "understand" about open source drivers but yet continue to argue your pointless cluster because you think that CM (the open source side) should behave like the company.
YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND! If you did, you would of never made this post and thank your lucky stars that your device even got on CM's radar for support.
Again, I know CM inc has done some messed up things in the past and are arguably run by a circus but what I hate more then them is ungrateful people like yourself.
Stop while you're ahead @XXchrisXX
What... the... fk...
Seriously... It's obvious you've violated XDA's "search before posting" rules.
Now, you've given enough information that you're obviously a haxxinos4 user. (You mention N7000 so probably a 4210, but I sort of recall seeing something indicating you might have a 4412 device...)
The only devices that actually have received benefits from Cyngn corporate are their "Cyanogen OS" devices. Oppo N1 and OnePlus One. Those are the two devices where Cyngn corporate staff have NDAs signed with the OEM and Qualcomm (and other suppliers) to fully support every piece of hardware within the device. Now, if your complaint is about those devices (which Cyngn HAS ****ed up too), you have a right to complain. But to be honest, you'll find little sympathy here since the Cyngn corporate guys and XDA don't really get along.
If you're a Haxxinos4 user, and actually PAID ATTENTION, you'd know that Samsung has continually bent the community over and ****ed them time and time again. (Especially in 2012, with the Superbrick fiasco and their broken promises at BABBQ 2012). You'd also know that basically everyone that USED to be a Haxxinos4 maintainer either retired from Android development or left CM after the Focal relicensing disaster. (And even after moving to Omni, Haxxinos4 is pretty much dead to most of us...)
So Mazda is right... While he (nor I) have any love for Cyngn (Kondick has blocked me on G+ for calling him out on various things back during the Focal relicensing fiasco - and I used to be the CM maintainer for multiple Haxxinos4 devices and the Oppo Find5)... Your post just reeks of "typical ungrateful user who can't even search to find the basic backstory of their device"...
Funny thing: Oppo N1 was Cyngn's first official device. Its predecessor, the Find 5, was entirely maintained by people who left CM to found Omni after the Focal relicensing fiasco. All of those people were former Haxxinos4 maintainers who were sick and tired of Samsung's bull**** already.
@XXchrisXX wow, you ungrateful twerp. If you don't like it, try another ROM. I'm anti CM after the things the company side did to the community, but they don't deserve this.
There are other ROMs that are more stable and have more features. Try those. Look at liquid smooth, omni, Dirty Unicorns... Way more options than just CM. But if you go to those Roms with this type of attitude expect zero support.
mazwoz said:
@XXchrisXX wow, you ungrateful twerp. If you don't like it, try another ROM. I'm anti CM after the things the company side did to the community, but they don't deserve this.
There are other ROMs that are more stable and have more features. Try those. Look at liquid smooth, omni, Dirty Unicorns... Way more options than just CM. But if you go to those Roms with this type of attitude expect zero support.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry to sound like a moron from left field, but what did CM do to the community? I've been out of the loop.
Saint Isaiah said:
Sorry to sound like a moron from left field, but what did CM do to the community? I've been out of the loop.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
They took the work of hundreds, forced people to relicense their work so that CM owned it, and then made millions on some contracts when they became a company. None of that money went to the people who spent years working on cm and helping them be what they are. It went to a few key people, and that's it. This people signed contracts with cm inc. Since then they have poached the lead developers from other ROMs to work with them, eliminating any possible competition.
mazwoz said:
They took the work of hundreds, forced people to relicense their work so that CM owned it, and then made millions on some contracts when they became a company. None of that money went to the people who spent years working on cm and helping them be what they are. It went to a few key people, and that's it. This people signed contracts with cm inc. Since then they have poached the lead developers from other ROMs to work with them, eliminating any possible competition.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Wow that's super ****ty! I'm guessing this is related to the work they did with the OnePlus One phone? Either way, thanks for the info.
Saint Isaiah said:
Sorry to sound like a moron from left field, but what did CM do to the community? I've been out of the loop.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Saint Isaiah said:
Wow that's super ****ty! I'm guessing this is related to the work they did with the OnePlus One phone? Either way, thanks for the info.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes and no, they did all of this before the OnePlus. The first CM phone was the Oppo N1, that contact came about a few months after this went down. Omni ROM was founded because of this.
Saint Isaiah said:
Sorry to sound like a moron from left field, but what did CM do to the community? I've been out of the loop.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I can't dig up a direct link currently, but do a search for "Focal relicensing"
I think there's a link to Guillaume's post on the issue from the CM wikipedia page, but I'm not sure.
Entropy512 said:
I can't dig up a direct link currently, but do a search for "Focal relicensing"
I think there's a link to Guillaume's post on the issue from the CM wikipedia page, but I'm not sure.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2451752
To the OP @XXchrisXX or is it @Noteguy? I am so confused. One of you has 1 post, the other one of you has 4 (all of them in here). Would the real OP PLEASE STAND UP????
That being said, it's quite obvious that you have nothing to offer this community except for whinging - and if you were the only one doing that on XDA then I would say the community should take note and listen to what you have to say. BUT - seeing as you're just another whiny user I think we can all, CM included, just ignore you.
I can't say anything more than what @Entropy512 and @Mazda has already said. You must be very young, because you seriously remind me of my kids sometimes. Get stuff for free, but still complain because its not 100% to your liking. Not sure about Germany, but here we call that ungrateful. Long ago I was not satisfied with the lack of development for my aging device, instead of calling out developers that work, have a family and spend what little free time they have giving me free stuff, I learned to develop myself as to not bother them. Its not plug and play. Most do this for themselves and share. Ranting will only cause them not to share. If you want to kill support for your device faster than the hurdles that are already present with trying to piece together the little bits of open source code we can use, then your on the right track. If you want continued support then sometimes a simple Thank you works wonders. Nobody is making a living off of this (open source side at least). Donations are nice, but I know first hand that both @Mazda and I have on certain occasions returned donations to users. We don't do it because of the money, we do it because its fun. Don't take the fun out of it is all I'm saying. Be grateful that you aren't stuck on OE jellybean or less software. You owe/need the development community more than the developers do, the sooner you realize that, the better off you'll be.