Cyanogen Inc and CyanogenMod Creator Steve Kondik Part Ways (ndtv.com)

bulled writes: In the middle of a press release discussing the move of employees from Seattle to California, Cyanogen Inc notes that it has parted ways with Steve Kondik. It is unclear what this means for the future of CyanogenMod. NDTV reports: "Kondik took to the official CyanogenMod developer Google+ community recently where he voiced what he thought were the reasons behind Cyanogen's plight and blamed Kirt McMaster, Cyanogen's Co-Founder. 'I've been pretty quiet about the stuff that's been going on but I'm at least ready to tell the short version and hopefully get some input on what to do next because CM is very much affected,' wrote Kondik in a private Google+ community first reported by Android Police. According to Kondik's version, Cyanogen's turmoil is way far from being over. He claimed that Cyanogen had seen success thanks to the efforts by the community and the company. Though, this also changed how the company worked. Explaining how it all started to come down, Kondik wrote, 'Unfortunately once we started to see success, my co-founder apparently became unhappy with running the business and not owning the vision. This is when the 'bullet to the head' and other misguided media nonsense started, and the bad business deals were signed. Being second in command, all I could do was try and stop it, do damage control, and hope every day that something new didn't happen. The worst of it happened internally and it became a generally shitty place to work because of all the conflict. I think the backlash from those initial missteps convinced him that what we had needed to be destroyed. By the time I was able to stop it, I was outgunned and outnumbered by a team on the same mission.' Kondik also seemingly confirmed a report from July which claimed Cyanogen may pivot to apps. He further wrote, 'Eventually I tried to salvage it with a pivot that would have brought us closer to something that would have worked, but the new guys had other plans. With plenty of cash in the bank, the new guys tore the place down and will go and do whatever they are going to do. It's probably for the best and I wish them luck, but what I was trying to do, is over.'"

Comments

Still a need for what he was origally doing

[JustNiz]

I knew Cyanogenmod was doomed as soon as Microsoft bought it.

Steve Kondik needs to go back to his roots and just do better android ports for common devices again. There's still a big need for it.

Re:Still a need for what he was origally doing

[Archangel Michael]

There is a strong vision in something like CyanogenMod, and that can be leveraged into "profits" given the right view.

I personally thought the original vision of Cyanogen Inc was towards the right track. However, once they kicked OnePlus to the curb for "more" (India) they lost almost all credibility they had in going that route. No real Handset Maker would ever do business with them after that.

The rest of whatever credibility they had left over , was gone the moment they were "bought" by Microsoft and started to Bing up the joint.

I don't care what the reasons were for either of those two "missteps", they killed Cyanogen Inc.

There are two valid moves Steve can make at this point, both I've seen mentioned elsewhere. First is take CM, and put it under a 501.c.3 Umbrella, and crowd source development. The other option is to "restart" the Company, but without a douchebag running it, and focus on taking lagging older handsets and getting them patched and updated, with (preferably) the blessings of the maker (good PR for both) or without.

IMHO these are not mutually exclusive either. The latter is going to take some time to get trust rebuilt, but it would pay huge if he found someone who knew the vision and could keep the focus tight (I volunteer, but I rather doubt anyone would take me up on it). There is still a need for custom/slim ROMs out there that aren't branded Nexus/Pixel/Chrome/Whatever

CyanogenMod is the only hope for some devices...

[mlts]

I know for some devices, CM is the only way the device will ever see security patches and updates. I hope this doesn't mean that this project dies, just because it is so useful, especially for owners of devices that are not big hits (the HTC A9 comes to mind.)

...Extinguish

[TheFakeTimCook]

Yep, the old formula is still working.

Good Job, Microsoft!

Fork it

[DrXym]

It wouldn't be the first time that a community decamped from a project by forking it and picking off from a new website.

Re:Android fans will just compile themselves...not

[EEPROMS]

hold your horses there sparky, Apple and Microsoft do have updates but both have has issues with updating older hardware. In Apples case many of the updates would make the phone perform like crap as the hardware was too old. I have a Nexus 6 that is 3 years old and I am running Android 7 with no issues or hacks needed. The issue is for all mobile devices after approx 3 years the software starts to exceed the ability of the device itself. So you end up shoehorning a size 13 software foot into a size 9 hardware shoe. Neither Apple or Microsoft offer the option to build a custom rom to fit your now out dated device so android devices is as good as it gets especially if you want to hang on to the hardware for a long period of time.