Related
****Last Day*****
Since money motivates some I'm starting a pledge thread for the DEV who roots an OTA stock version of Froyo on the EVO. For folks who are going to pledge here, please be serious and adhere to giving in the dollar or euro amount you are pledging. Understand these folks are doing this stuff on their free-time and with the money being offered we are hoping it will put a little more focus on getting this initiative completed sooner rather then later.
At minimum I am hoping for:
hboot.93 hack
Root Stock OTA Froyo 2.2 with Super User
Wifi Tether working
Everything else can stay the same in the ROM.
Once a Developer produces such an image with install instructions and is verified working, then those who pledge will insert funds to to the developer's Paypal account within 24 hours. Should be pretty simple. Again if you pledge, be a man or woman or your word and give this person what they earned.
I'm STARTING out with my pledge of $50 U.S. Dollars. Good luck!
**** Based on a Suggestion Going to include a deadline of 8/20 for the project to be completed to be eligible for the funds ***
Finally should a DEVELOPER decide they don't want the money, whatever is pledged here will be given to the XDA website donation link. And Please keep this to pledge donation amount replies.
(To admin, please make a sticky if possible)
Well it was a good attempt. I want to thank all of those who actually "PLEDGED" money and did not come to this thread to complain about the reasons why we put this pledge together.
For those that are stuck, I think it's time we face the music and consider one of two options:
Continue to Wait. (It's been 17 days since the release of OTA Froyo and no known exploit has been found)
Start looking at another device
I've decided to cut my looses and pre-order on an EPIC. It has been a pleasure being on the EVO side of the XDA forums. I wish the best of luck to everyone here and I hope one day root is achieved and that new bootloader is defeated.
Cheers
Never mind, the other thread is for an updated PRI for rooted phones.
By all means start a new thread.
I thought about starting a similar thread. Many developers have already put a lot of effort into solving this without monetary motivation. The only way I see this helping is if an HTC/Sprint person with access we don't have, helps out. The brightest minds in this community (dare I say anywhere) are already working hard on it. That, or maybe a non-Evo developer will start, but prob doubtful. Either way, $25 to support this. Save me from my stupidity/nonroot hell!
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App
Since I am chronically impatient and therefore Dl'd the OTA I will throw down $10. Sorry I can't contribute more, new father here.
I can scrape together another $25 for the effort.
the price of one months tether
$30
So then are you guys planning on paying unrevoked tonight?
edufur said:
So then are you guys planning on paying unrevoked tonight?
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Click to collapse
maybe you should go read again. you need to have a rooted phone already.
Somehow, I don't think that it's the lack of a monetary award that’s keeping the 2.2 root from happening. Normally, bounties are used for issues that nobody’s really working on, or for issues that have been worked on for some time, but are exceedingly difficult. What you’re doing here is setting a precedent where devs will be racing against each other to be first out the door with something that they’re all already working on, to win a monetary reward. I don’t know if that kind of precedent is a good idea.
2.2 root will happen, just be patient.
BTW, I’m no dev, so I can't speak for them, I'm just a member of the xda community. It just makes me a bit uncomfortable to see these kinds of threads. And that’s also not to say that the devs don’t deserve every dollar – they do! They kick ass in every way, shape and form. So maybe when they do root 2.2, send them a donation. But the reason I’ve been coming here since way back when I had the HTC Kaiser (although I only joined up when I got my Evo, I've been lurking here for years), is for the community and the people. Specifically people helping people, just to be helpful, and because they can, because they have the knowledge, and to show what can be done when the corporate locks are removed from a device so that it's capabilities are only limited to the coding skills of the dev, and the imagination of the community. Not for the money. To be frank, I think that if we keep going down this direction, we’ll all be worse off, and xda may change – and not for the better.
Just my $0.02, so take it for what it's worth.
And get off my lawn! Sorry - the above came out with a much more doom and gloom attitude than what I had intended. Didn’t mean to rain on anyone’s parade. ;-)
fachadick said:
Somehow, I don't think that it's the lack of a monetary award that’s keeping the 2.2 root from happening. Normally, bounties are used for issues that nobody’s really working on, or for issues that have been worked on for some time, but are exceedingly difficult. What you’re doing here is setting a precedent where devs will be racing against each other to be first out the door with something that they’re all already working on, to win a monetary reward. I don’t know if that kind of precedent is a good idea.
2.2 root will happen, just be patient.
BTW, I’m no dev, so I can't speak for them, I'm just a member of the xda community. It just makes me a bit uncomfortable to see these kinds of threads. And that’s also not to say that the devs don’t deserve every dollar – they do! They kick ass in every way, shape and form. So maybe when they do root 2.2, send them a donation. But the reason I’ve been coming here since way back when I had the HTC Kaiser (although I only joined up when I got my Evo, I've been lurking here for years), is for the community and the people. Specifically people helping people, just to be helpful, and because they can, because they have the knowledge, and to show what can be done when the corporate locks are removed from a device so that it's capabilities are only limited to the coding skills of the dev, and the imagination of the community. Not for the money. To be frank, I think that if we keep going down this direction, we’ll all be worse off, and xda may change – and not for the better.
Just my $0.02, so take it for what it's worth.
And get off my lawn! Sorry - the above came out with a much more doom and gloom attitude than what I had intended. Didn’t mean to rain on anyone’s parade. ;-)
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*******
I totally respect your view and agree that it should not be a money race. Open source is a beautiful thing and that is what I love about this platform. Developers craft their skill and share with others because they have a passion for what they do and not because they want to make money.
Once in a while though we should honor them for what it is they do and since the release of Froyo, it saddens me to read postings from individuals who are mocking people who upgraded their phone via OTA though there were warnings about it, lets face it, Froyo is an enticing update and unfortunately some folks jumped on it. But I also believe that there are a fare amount of people here who either recently purchased the phone or was in the middle of a warranty issue that ended up with an OTA'd Froyo and because these individuals want to mock and make these assumptions, it could be perceived that the only people who are begging for a root are the ones who OTA'd by choice. Regardless on how everyone got to OTA Froyo, we are here now and are patiently waiting for a workaround.
So in the hopes of offering in incentive not only to the fine work of developers here at XDA, but to help those of us who are stuck in limbo, I started this pledge to help get this initiative going.
fachadick said:
Somehow, I don't think that it's the lack of a monetary award that’s keeping the 2.2 root from happening. ~snip~ Didn’t mean to rain on anyone’s parade. ;-)
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Agreed, so consider my contribution a donation to whoever roots this beast.
You can put me down for $20.00. Im in a slightly different boat than everyone else. My phone already had 2.2 on it when I picked it up. I dont know if it was that way out of the box or if one of the nice Sprint employees was kind enough to upgrade it for me. I paid for the phone/service when the store opened but didnt come back for the phone until after lunch because they needed to port the number, paperwork, etc and I didnt have time to wait.
That being said, I bought a bunch of software for my N1 which is now useless as I dont have root and Id really like to have that stuff back working again.
it's unfortunate that an open-source community, where devs work with free software, needs to resort to money to motivate people. i understand that there are devs out there who will do this for free because they enjoy doing it for free (so not all devs need money for motivation), but lets be real. you're promoting an environment where open source also means "but not for free".
there's no doubt that there are very very very talented devs here and maybe they do deserve some money. but what happens when they start thinking, "hmmm, if people are willing to pay just for root, I wonder what they'll pay for my services?"
cnstarz said:
you're promoting an environment where open source also means "but not for free".[/I]"
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Open Source doesn't mean the devs are working for free. If they want to sell their services then only those willing to pay shall receive such services. It is totally up to the devs.
jedwardmiller said:
Open Source doesn't mean the devs are working for free. If they want to sell their services then only those willing to pay shall receive such services. It is totally up to the devs.
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+1
Also, just because people are offering a bounty, doesn't mean that's why the devs are doing it. Like I said before, bounty or no bounty, someone will find a way to root froyo, and when that happens, I doubt that they'll have done it for the money.
Sent from my blah blah blah blah
bump..................................
Ok much better...
Should a developer decide that they don't want the money for their work, then what ever funds we have collected here, we'll donate it to the XDA forum paypal account to keep to site running. In either case the money will go to a good cause.
There needs to be a deadline tho. If not..it means it can be a year from now and still collect. I'd say by next Friday. A simple root will do, we can hold off for nand unlock. Atleast with simple root we can still tether which is what we mostly want.
Put me down for $20! I'm a newb with all this. Came over from the jailbreak world just last week. Can someone give me a heads up on how I donate the money once the root is released? Do these devs usually have pay pal donation function on there sites?
sent from my evo
Directly from the maker of focal:
Guillaume Lesniak
I remained silent about the whole Focal relicensing troubles for now. There was a lot of drama between the app being GPL, and the fact Cyanogen Inc wanted to use it, which drove some frustration between me, some CM contributors, and CM leaders. As a result, to avoid any problem, Focal has been removed from CyanogenMod. I think you deserve explanations and “behind the scenes” view on how all of this happened, and to know it’s not just a last-minute decision or ragequit.
This is the true, fully-featured story of the “Focal drama”. It's not a rant about how Cyanogen Inc is bad or anything (and it can be a good thing, with a few conditions, see at the end of the post), but just an insight on how this all happened, and how some people were and are feeling.*
A few months ago, I decided to work on an app to replace AOSP’s Camera app after +Steve Kondik* expressed concerns about the camera experience on CyanogenMod in a G+ post. I decided to take the challenge, and build up a camera app that would be up with users’ expectations: accessible and innovative UI, but fully-featured.
You all know how that worked out - the app has been out for some time now. I’ve been keeping the “internal” CM team (read: the CyanogenMod Dev private G+ group) tuned with my progress, releasing them mockups, screenshots and videos of the progress. Luckily, nobody ever leaked what it was, even with the big storm we started with the Nemesis trailer.
A few days before we started organizing Focal’s launch, I was approached by +Koushik Dutta* and +Steve Kondik*. They wanted to talk to me about CyanogenMod’s future developments, that sounded cool. Koush told me in a video chat Cyanogen’s plans since he left Samsung: they found investors, and they’re ready to push forward Cyanogen Inc, a company selling services for CyanogenMod. At first, that sounded amazing, getting a few bucks for working on something I’ve been doing for free for some time. That would allow the student I am to get some stuff and get a kickstart for my future life. That would have given me the chance to spend more time on CM, as I wouldn't need to work elsewhere. Now, I didn’t have much information about what were Cyanogen Inc plans to make money, but I expected it to be through some kind of services - koush told me about CMID, which later became CMAccount, or other premium things like a one-click installer, or even a CMPhone. That sounded like a nice addition to CyanogenMod, leaving the community intact, and adding more value to the software distribution.
I had a similar chat with Steve, where he explained me some of the other aspects of Cyanogen Inc, his philosophy about it, etc. Okay, that sounds like a good plan, get me involved and enhance the open distribution I know and love. I have a few emails back and forth between Steve, Koush and me, talking about what I could work on, what I could enhance on Focal, etc. They’re telling me they’re looking into contracts, and I wait.
That’s when the “drama” started.
I got a Hangouts chat from Koush, saying that Focal would need to be relicensed because GPL isn’t ideal -- wait what, not ideal for an Open Source project?
“The issue is that we need to be able to relicense it”
“It’ll be open as GPL, but CM can do what they want with it.”
Yes, Cyanogen Inc. will need to do changes in CyanogenMod’s source code - because here’s another way they will finance the project: customization for their customers (e.g. carriers). This will imply the work done by the community will be sold to a third party by Cyanogen Inc, and that they have to do changes that they cannot put online publicly. A future conversation with Steve Kondik will reveal that they might need to put hardware-specific enhancement for some camera devices, and that has to be hacked in the Camera app code. Putting these changes inside Camera apps instead of Hardware Abstraction Layers (HAL) could break other apps, which ironically kind of go against the goal of CTS (because then, only the “official” camera app will have those enhancements). Of course, those hardware enhancements are trade secrets, so they cannot be published back to CyanogenMod’s public repositories...
So this is where I started to feel screwed. I didn’t think much further, but I felt like I had no other choice but comply with Cyanogen’s relicensing, and allow them to do whatever they want with my code, and sell it customized to their vendors. They used the Contributor License Agreement as an argument, saying that basically they could do anything with my code since I submitted it.
At the same time, the “cyngn.com” domain was discovered, and concerns rised about what the hell it was. People such as pulser_g2 started to find connections between Cyngn.com, Kirt McMaster, Steve Kondik, Koushik Dutta, and all these people working at a “secret company” in a “secret location”. From ways I cannot even explain, he was able to come up with everything Koush and Steve told me, how they’d make money, and what are their future plans. Since he already knew everything, I told him about what was going on with Focal licensing, and he came up with the fact that this wasn’t legally right: the software is licensed as GPL, the repository on CyanogenMod’s github is forked from my GitHub, so it didn’t go through the Contributor License Agreement (which only applies to Gerrit submissions), and the Berne convention can prove through the commits history that I did fully write the app, and not Cyanogen Inc. - and even if the CLA would apply, it only allows them to sublicense the software, not relicense or dual-license it without my permission.
I didn’t want to be a jerk on that licensing story, and went ahead to resolve the issue directly in private with Steve. At the same time, other people such as Andrew Dodd (Entropy512) beginned to hear echoes about something was going on with Cyanogen, and heard about the GPL licensing issues around the time Land of Droid revealed the connections. He got really upset about that, getting only silence or vague answers from CM leads, turning around sentences.
That’s where they started lying to the community, denying they had something to do with cyngn.com, denying there was a commercialization of CyanogenMod going on. When people said “Why would Focal get relicensed?” they would just say “No, it’s not relicensed. It will stay GPL.” - yes, that’s where “relicense” became “dual-license”, where the app would remain GPL publicly, but still allow Cyanogen Inc to do what they want with it. But they didn't mention that publicly.
pulser_g2 raised some points on an XDA post that became quite famous, quoted by some news websites, and raised to the attention of some CM leads.
The official answer was: “Don’t interfere, don’t reply, let it go”
So, they didn’t confirm or infirm that CyanogenMod was or was not going commercial. If it wasn’t going commercial, they would have denied it. But here, they ask to “let it go”. Why not tell the truth? For them, it was better to just sweep it under the rug. But who was right in the end?
At that point in time, I still had no news about the contracts I was meant to receive weeks ago for working with Cyanogen Inc on Focal. I pinged ciwrl, who told me to check with koush, who told me to check with Steve, who didn’t reply.
At that time, they also started scrapping features from CyanogenMod. Device’s “Advanced settings” disappeared, without getting a proper replacement first. Some features aren't considered as useful enough, and didn’t make it into the new CMHW HAL. Even if users want something, they won’t get it if it’s not useful enough. Save to external SD disappeared as well from the AOSP Camera app, because it breaks Google’s CTS. Root access is planned to be COMPLETELY removed by default, and to be downloaded in a separate package. Users don’t use root anyway, they say. All of this because of a future CyanogenMod Phone, which has to pass CTS to get Google Apps officially. Want some exotic features? Too bad. You won’t get them if Google don’t. Wasn’t that the point of CyanogenMod originally? Derp.
That’s when my concerns started to raise about the community contributions. People such as +Nebojša Cvetković* contributed a lot of features to CyanogenMod’s launcher “Trebuchet”, and felt bad about not getting any reward for his work, when Cyanogen Inc. would make money out of it. Same concerns were raised by other maintainers and developers who contribute, or used to contribute to CyanogenMod. It was the last bit required for multiple people to leave the CyanogenMod development community, or for some users to simply stop using CyanogenMod. They didn’t know exactly what Cyanogen Inc was up to, but since the leaders would just lie to them to hide the truth, they felt let down. And it was clear from my chats with Steve that they had no ideas or plans, besides contracting everyone, to reward contributors. But they cannot just contract everyone, like nebkat as he’s not old enough yet to have a contract. Some other people just don’t want to be contracted, but still want to get a reward. It’s only recently that I told Steve that people would be totally happy with some perks (computer stuff, t-shirts, usb drives, devices for big contributors, etc.), and it seems like he didn’t think about that at first.
This continued for some time, until now. Cyanogen Inc is now public, and they revealed (part of) their plans for the near future. And a sentence struck me on most news sites that relayed the news: they talk about “Cyanogen’s new Camera app” -- what WHAT? So it’s Cyanogen’s camera app now? It not a CONTRIBUTION anymore?! *- They claim it's their app, and I still had no news about the whole licensing thing, even if I had the chance to raise the point a few times.
This was too much this time - I pulled the alarm. I first contacted +Abhisek Devkota* on why it was phrased this way, to be welcomed with a “You submitted it…” … Uhm, no, but he wasn’t going to argue with me, and told me to see that with Steve, which I did. After some chat, explaining how he could reward nebkat and other contributors, he told me that he was still waiting on me to “list my pricing, features and milestones for Focal” -- which I did, back on July 23rd. I never had any answer, seemingly because the “Focal drama started” and he got frustrated. From there, it seemed like Steve just wanted to stop dealing with it because “this is too much drama”. The exact drama part that bothers him? Well, some contributors weren’t happy about what Cyanogen Inc is. +Andrew Dodd*really insisted and wanted to have explanations on WHY Focal would need to be relicensed, and why all this secrecy, without any real answer ever.*
And how does Steve deals with these kind of reactions now? Easy answer:
“Oh god please tell me the story. grabs popcorn” https://plus.google.com/u/0/101093310520661581786/posts/1ev1FJpSCE3
Well, here’s your story. And here’s how they treat huge contributors like Andrew, who aren’t big enough and don’t open their mouth with the right people. The most ironical thing? If they want to dual-license, it is to make non-open changes to the apps. So, we’ll need CyanogenMod for the CyanogenMod Phone, because the code shipping on the device won’t match the public code.
Steve’s argument to avoid rewarding people, is that people wants to be “retroactively paid” - but he doesn’t seem to understand that people contributed when CyanogenMod was still a project all about open source, that wasn’t removing features from the ROM, and that had no commercial intentions. Nebkat contributed a lot of stuff in the Launcher, which is a central component of CyanogenMod today. But he did it a few months ago, “before” Cyanogen Inc, so he doesn’t deserve anything. But Cyanogen Inc can sell it to his customers.
Entropy512 wanted to clarify that point for his situation, which is true for many other contributors: “Some people like myself contribute to the project to keep our minds sharp and it's rewarding in and of itself. *I make more than enough money in my day job. *If someone is planning on creating a closed source fork, which is the only thing that dual licensing enables, it is no longer rewarding.”
Now, don't get me wrong. Cyanogen Inc is a huge milestone for CyanogenMod, and I can only applaud Steve for the initiative and being able to get there. There are not only dark points with the company, far from that. There’s a big bright side: CyanogenMod will become more stable, and will eventually get more features (even if they’re not going to do anything against CTS). Device support might get enhanced, since they’re paid to work on it now (even if issues existing for a LONG time aren’t fixed). And users maybe will get official support.
But the community can feel let down at some point. People from external ROMs would have loved to contribute back to CM at some point. However when Cyanogen’s leaders refers to Paranoid Android or AOKP, they call it “that other ROM”. Steve, always saying “Go ahead and fork”, isn’t actually taking seriously contributions from other developers. And since external contributors know their contributions are going to be ignored, they just don’t submit anything.
I could go on and on with many other things, how the code review is done (or rather, not done), how submissions are just -2’d without explanations, how they criticize XDA users (yes, where ¾ of their user base come from), how they complain people don’t contribute, when they DID but the patch was ignored because the maintainer didn’t want it at that time, how unstable devices are tagged as RC/stable (without asking their maintainers ; Netflix won’t run on a “stable” build of CM for exynos devices), etc. But I’m not here for that.
At this point, on my end the issue is solved, Focal is pulled from CyanogenMod. It wasn't a last minute decision, it wasn't just because I discovered it just now. It's something that has been running for around two months, and the solution was only found yesterday after a long discussion, and because it had to be stopped quickly.
I will keep on improving the app, fixing bugs, and make it better. If it’s not in CyanogenMod, then it will find room in another ROM. The app is GPL, and I will put it up on the Play Store at some point.
I have plans to raise the awareness of the importance of Open Source, and how GPL doesn't prevent any paid work, and that that there are easy ways to keep the community happy with such a situation.
And at the same time, I wish the best to Cyanogen Inc.
Keep in mind: CyanogenMod wouldn’t be what it is today without its contributors. If you’re able to run CyanogenMod on your device today, it might not be only thanks to Steve, Koushik or Ricardo. There are hundreds of people behind them who pushed many patches, and enabled many devices as a hobby. Have you ever heard of them?
Sent from my LG-LS970 using Tapatalk 4
wow, yeah this one of the things I was fearing when I first seen the post of CM becoming a company with license and the whole nine yards... Sorry to see the dev of the focal app have to go through such bull, and sorry to see such a blow on the whole Android Community but this is what happens in these situations.
Pondering how this is going to effect the Android (ROM) Community in a whole, there are a lot of ROM's out there that are based off of / use the CM as the base for them selves. Makes me feel better that I am fond of AOKP.
Just saying...
SlimMan said:
wow, yeah this one of the things I was fearing when I first seen the post of CM becoming a company with license and the whole nine yards... Sorry to see the dev of the focal app have to go through such bull, and sorry to see such a blow on the whole Android Community but this is what happens in these situations.
Pondering how this is going to effect the Android (ROM) Community in a whole, there are a lot of ROM's out there that are based off of / use the CM as the base for them selves. Makes me feel better that I am fond of AOKP.
Just saying...
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Yea its time to start finding something new ... It been my fear as well since their was talk of this since February ... Know it just goes to show all the work everyone put into cm all these years has just been to start padding pockets and getting ripped off in the process...
Sent from my fingertips to you're eyeballs !
It really is a double edged sword. This is a great moment for CM but you can't get bigger without leaving people behind. I'm in the music biz and I see bands piss off die hard fans (who helped put them into popularity) because they want to sign corporate and see how far they can take themselves. To me this is no different but I hope that people will keep open source alive.
Although I'm both happy and sad to read this news I believe that if CM gets too pretentious there will always be another popping up for freedom. Least I hope so...thanks for sharing some insight.
I'm just sharing what he stated ... Wasn't for him I wouldn't known about the drama and troubles facing cm expansion lol....
Sent from my fingertips to you're eyeballs !
Now that I have read this. Im not too sure how much more i want to use cyanogen mod
Sent from my LG-LS970
https://plus.google.com/app/basic/stream/z123dtujmqbiwrevm22ge5rxonrqe5g5b04
Sent from my LG-LS970 using Tapatalk 4
Hmm, does shed some light on the new CyanogenMod Inc. Makes you reconsider some things.
Remember, this is only from one perspective. History is subjective.
No it´s not. How it´s told is.
This should get more atention.
Screw CyanogenMod. Makes me wish I could take back all the times I donated to some of those pompous inbred swine.
oohaylima said:
Screw CyanogenMod. Makes me wish I could take back all the times I donated to some of those pompous inbred swine.
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You do realize most of the "members" of CyanogenMod as pure volunteers. Until a few months ago, all where volunteers. Now there is a select few which are part of Cyanogen Inc, but most are still purely volunteers.
Then "most" I will continue to support if that's the case. It just irritates me when people do that to developers who contribute out of their free time.
Wonder how big CM would be with just Steve, Koushik and Ricardo?
Exactly.
More power to you man.
Oh god.......
Sent from my Nexus 4 using xda app-developers app
Does anyone know how to get focal now that it isn't included in cm? I really miss this camera.
Sent from my LG-LS970 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app
You can get it in the play store
Sent from my LG-LS970 using xda app-developers app
bigfdaddy2 said:
Directly from the maker of focal:
Guillaume Lesniak
I remained silent about the whole Focal relicensing troubles for now. There was a lot of drama between the app being GPL, and the fact Cyanogen Inc wanted to use it, which drove some frustration between me, some CM contributors, and CM leaders. As a result, to avoid any problem, Focal has been removed from CyanogenMod. I think you deserve explanations and “behind the scenes” view on how all of this happened, and to know it’s not just a last-minute decision or ragequit...[shorting it out]......Keep in mind: CyanogenMod wouldn’t be what it is today without its contributors. If you’re able to run CyanogenMod on your device today, it might not be only thanks to Steve, Koushik or Ricardo. There are hundreds of people behind them who pushed many patches, and enabled many devices as a hobby. Have you ever heard of them?
Sent from my LG-LS970 using Tapatalk 4
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Thanks for sharing this(I find it by mistake but glad I did), sorry for replying in this old post but I really liked your side of the story
P.S. My OnePlus One has terrible bugs and I don't see CM fixing them anytime soon in their "official-stable" versions
BTW about the camera, their official camera works fine but EVERY 3rd party camera app can't get flash in low light situation without two halves ..so no 3rd party camera app. I use to admire CM in the past :S
I'm still a junior member of the community, so wondering if we can have some more senior members chime in.
With the Unlock tool now being available, we are ready to rock with custom ROMS. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like many people are picking up this device.
Do people know the best method of bringing over other developed ROMS? Do we start kickstarters to buy an unlocked device to ship to a known development team, like AOSP, RR, MIUI, Official Lineage, etc.? I was going to go over to the Zenfone 2 community and start asking developers there if they planned on picking up a Zenfone 3 device, not sure what the reception will be.
This phone's hardware can pack a punch, and with it being unlocked I think it can really be a power enthusiasts phone of choice. Just need to have more mechanics looking under the hood! I'm not a developer by trade, so I can't lend a hand personally, but I have a few dollars I can spend to make it lucrative!
Any suggestions?
Unfortunately ASUS just about killed off all developement for this phone. It's been out for almost 6 months, that's long enough for newer, better(?) phones to be released. Devs will tend to go with the newer devices.
At the same time that this device was released, other more dev friendly devices came out and if a device can't be hacked and altered to our hearts content then the devs shy away...
It may be that a true developement of the software may not come to pass and we will be left along the wayside as newr devices are just around the corner. About the ONLY way you might get some dev support is to actually buy a device for a recognized dev and hope they get interested.
Serious question, and not one to knock any developer or anyone else, and I am not complaining... But why don't we have more custom ROM's for this device?
I have owned lots of Nexus/Pixel devices in the past, and within a few months of release there were dozens of ROM's available for the device, but for this device there is a couple kernels and a few unofficial or "build it yourself" ROM's and that is it. It just seems very odd that a device so open by design and sold extremely well doesn't have more options. Why?
I admit I haven't had much involvement in the custom ROM community in a few years, and I haven't really felt a need to use a custom ROM in some time as I have been using Moto, Nokia, Nexus, and Pixel devices for the most part for years and just a few tweaks here and there are good enough, but I went to look into other possibilities with my Pixel 3a XL recently and found there just isn't much of anything.
acejavelin said:
Serious question, and not one to knock any developer or anyone else, and I am not complaining... But why don't we have more custom ROM's for this device?
I have owned lots of Nexus/Pixel devices in the past, and within a few months of release there were dozens of ROM's available for the device, but for this device there is a couple kernels and a few unofficial or "build it yourself" ROM's and that is it. It just seems very odd that a device so open by design and sold extremely well doesn't have more options. Why?
I admit I haven't had much involvement in the custom ROM community in a few years, and I haven't really felt a need to use a custom ROM in some time as I have been using Moto, Nokia, Nexus, and Pixel devices for the most part for years and just a few tweaks here and there are good enough, but I went to look into other possibilities with my Pixel 3a XL recently and found there just isn't much of anything.
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I think your statement of "I haven't really felt the need to use a custom Rom..." is very telling. We also get monthly updates without jumping through hoops and we have feature sets we all like. Also Google Pay is being used more and more and you need to unlock the bootloader which breaks GP. I mean you can do kernel mods to enable it but it's just not worth it. What would you like that you don't currently have? I can name a few things like modifying location of the clock, changing vibration, things like that. But is it worth not having security updates or hoping the rom dev will update the rom? And then asking for an ETA and getting hammered by users for asking. It's just not worth it and devs have moved on to other money making ventures. Begging for donations doesn't pay the rent.
Bottom line, it's not worth it for rom devs and thus we have just a few. Flashing is not as easy as it used to be with dual slots. I remember just flashing each file and vendor and done. Bootloop, no prob just reflash the image. Not anymore. Now it's "omg your rom bricked my phone". Last thing.. we all have things to do now whereas we were young and stupid years back. Just give me a nice display, good battery, some options, and I'm good. Just some random thoughs.. agree or disagree but simply observations on my part.
There are ROMs not listed on xda available but you have to search them out. But even on that end it's in the range of 3-4 bonito ROMs that I can think of.
I'm guessing we'll see more builds sooner rather than later since 10 just got officially released earlier in the month(plus TWRP isn't available for 10 yet - not that that would stop fastboot flashable ROMs from being built). Also the upcoming release of the pixel 4 should drop prices on the 3aXl which means more people will pick up this device and more ROMs will(most likely) be built. *That's my theory at least...I've seen other devices' development happen that way in the past so that's where I'm coming from.
I also think a combination of factors has slowed development in general across the board: less people buy new phones as often now(our phone is less than 6 months old), and stock android has gotten to the point that just rooting and minor tweaking is good enough for a lot of people. Not me personally - I always use custom ROMs - but for some others all they need is slightly tweaked stock, some theme-ing ability, and a few root apps like adaway or root browser to stay happy.
But anyway, big thanks to those who are building for our device. Y'all have skills that I do not have - which are much appreciated by me & many others.
And that was kind of what I thought... The custom ROM scene, particularly on Google devices is just shrinking. Thanks for confirming my suspicions.
Time will tell as this community moves into 10 development, but I'm guessing things will pick up a bit. Hang in there:good:
Bob nesta said:
There are ROMs not listed on xda available but you have to search them out. But even on that end it's in the range of 3-4 bonito ROMs that I can think of..
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For Android 10? Ive seen zero. 10 is very different than Pie and Bonito has a bunch of uniqueness as well. Building 10 for it is no small task and may take a while before you see 10 Roms for it. Even the handful of Rom devs (or teams) that have 10 builds dont have Bonito.
This is very similar to when Shamu came out. It took 2-3 months before custom Roms were working as there were so many changes from Hammerhead and Marshmallow was a very different build vs KitKat. There were also very unique challenges when Marlin came out for the same reasons. I hope to have Velocity up and running in the next few weeks but I wouldnt hold my breath on it as this has been one of the most challenging updates Ive come across and Ive been building Roms for Nexus/Pixel devices since JellyBean.
ctfrommn said:
For Android 10? Ive seen zero. 10 is very different than Pie and Bonito has a bunch of uniqueness as well. Building 10 for it is no small task and may take a while before you see 10 Roms for it. Even the handful of Rom devs (or teams) that have 10 builds dont have Bonito.
This is very similar to when Shamu came out. It took 2-3 months before custom Roms were working as there were so many changes from Hammerhead and Marshmallow was a very different build vs KitKat. There were also very unique challenges when Marlin came out for the same reasons. I hope to have Velocity up and running in the next few weeks but I wouldnt hold my breath on it as this has been one of the most challenging updates Ive come across and Ive been building Roms for Nexus/Pixel devices since JellyBean.
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Oh, not for 10. I was referring to pie. I'm pretty sure some of those pie ROMs slowed development down in anticipation for 10, so it's just a slow time right now.
It's cool... I understand a lot of work goes into building, so when/if they come - they come.
One question - does the a/b partitioning and lack of recovery partition make building harder or easier? (This is my first a/b device...just wondering.)
*And thanks for your hard work; I've been lurking on your kernel thread and see how much you've been refining it. Looking forward to your ROM whenever it drops. :good:
Never owned or dev'd for an a/b device except Marlin (Pixel 1) and that was pretty different from this I believe. Lack of recovery only affects how we flash it. The biggest issue right now is getting all the needed vendor/device stuff for it to boot and run right. No idea why this is never fully included with AOSP + posted binaries but it isnt.
The kernel (as always) is much simpler than a full Rom. Im still trying to get my head fully around the nuances for building a Rom for this. Rest assured they will come. Im definitely going to be spending more time on that side now.
---------- Post added at 10:44 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:40 AM ----------
acejavelin said:
The custom ROM scene, particularly on Google devices is just shrinking.
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Most people that bought the Pixels had little need for a custom Rom. This will change I think with the lower cost of the "a" line. So many people jumped off the Google phone train when the Nexus died and the cost was simply higher than they/I/we wanted to spend for a phone. The "a" line is a lot of what the Nexus line was so I would guess this will bring many back, though OP has done a good job taking and keeping most of them.
Not sure I would agree with that.
The elephant in the room is the activity across this entire forum section; there are few people here compared to another Pixel like the vanilla 3XL, massively less than you'll find over on the OnePlus sections. They're giving the A series credit for Goog seeing an 88% increase in Pixel sales this year but those sales do not appear to be to people like us that frequent this place, if they were, they would be here. I think at least for now this phone sold to ordinary folk, people who have never looked at their phones and wondered if they're truly bricked or just soft-bricked. Can't honestly say I know I'm right here but a look at the activity and available goodies over in OnePlus land is certainly compelling. Less money and bigger numbers along with an unlocked bootloader have attracted plenty of enthusiasts and along with them, development.
The regular 3 has been out a lot longer and development is mature. I also cant say Im definitively right either of course and I 100% agree OP has taken most of the low budget enthusiasts over to their side, especially outside the US.
Either way, it makes no nevermind to me. I will always build for the device I own and choose the device I own very carefully. There will be at least Velocity for the 3a XL its just a matter of how long it takes to get it up and running.
And yes, the lack of activity in this forum is almost shocking to me but last I was here with any regularity was in the Nexus 4/Nexus 5 days which was the wild west of Android development.
Let's not forget to mention the constant free advertising xda does for oneplus as well; that definitely helps their cause.
*And I'll admit it - I fell for it myself: bought a oneplus 7 pro, found that I hate curved displays, and returned it the next day - but the hype on xda fooled me for sure. The 7t pro looks nice, but I'm good - I'm hanging in with my bonito and seeing where things go.
krabman said:
Not sure I would agree with that.
The elephant in the room is the activity across this entire forum section; there are few people here compared to another Pixel like the vanilla 3XL, massively less than you'll find over on the OnePlus sections. They're giving the A series credit for Goog seeing an 88% increase in Pixel sales this year but those sales do not appear to be to people like us that frequent this place, if they were, they would be here. I think at least for now this phone sold to ordinary folk, people who have never looked at their phones and wondered if they're truly bricked or just soft-bricked. Can't honestly say I know I'm right here but a look at the activity and available goodies over in OnePlus land is certainly compelling. Less money and bigger numbers along with an unlocked bootloader have attracted plenty of enthusiasts and along with them, development.
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Hahaha. "vanilla 3XL" far superior to any 3a. I will go with small a
It doesn't surprise me because I, too, am finding myself comfortable with stock and avoiding all the inconveniences (mainly the merry-go-round of breaking things that check for root)... the only thing I really miss is being able to block ads and titanium backup. But it just isn't bothering me enough to care...
Golf c said:
Hahaha. "vanilla 3XL" far superior to any 3a. I will go with small a
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I owned the 3XL and didn't find it far superior. In fact I took it back and got a 6T while I waited for the next thing. Mainly it was the notch, and redraws in the GUI. In any event I only meant to refer to the regular 3XL or by extension any Pixel.
I guess if I paid @$300-400usd more for a device that has a smaller battery, with the same camera hardware(rear - don't care about the selfie cam), no headphone jack, and had a hideous notch so the OEM can claim "small bezels" - I may also be bitter & lurking in other devices' threads & talking smack(so I could feel better about my purchase...?)
Enjoy your 3xl and your notch... I guess. Congrats. :good:
Anytime you want to contribute to the 3axl community you are totally welcome to. No bitterness here. Otherwise...please go back to your "far superior" 3xl land please. We are not good enough for you here.
Take care.
*Bows down to the "far superior" 3xl owner*:angel:
I'm not going to claim expertise when I say this but I can call out plenty of experience on XDA over the course of many phones: I would not expect this forum section to be getting more active in the future. I'm not saying a ROM wont come but there was never much activity here at any time, it is quite slow now, it continues to get slower. Everything I've seen over my time here tells me that trend will continue. I'm honestly surprised about that because I had thought when I purchased this phone that this section would be moderately active. I was wrong. I don't like saying that and wish it wasn't true but that's how I see it.
I'll be off toward 4XL land soon; I have all the coffee tables a man needs in one life and I like my toys.
krabman said:
I'm not going to claim expertise when I say this but I can call out plenty of experience on XDA over the course of many phones: I would not expect this forum section to be getting more active in the future. I'm not saying a ROM wont come but there was never much activity here at any time, it is quite slow now, it continues to get slower. Everything I've seen over my time here tells me that trend will continue. I'm honestly surprised about that because I had thought when I purchased this phone that this section would be moderately active. I was wrong. I don't like saying that and wish it wasn't true but that's how I see it.
I'll be off toward 4XL land soon; I have all the coffee tables a man needs in one life and I like my toys.
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You mean bezzels right not coffee tables. Hahaha
acejavelin said:
Serious question, and not one to knock any developer or anyone else, and I am not complaining... But why don't we have more custom ROM's for this device?
I have owned lots of Nexus/Pixel devices in the past, and within a few months of release there were dozens of ROM's available for the device, but for this device there is a couple kernels and a few unofficial or "build it yourself" ROM's and that is it. It just seems very odd that a device so open by design and sold extremely well doesn't have more options. Why?
I admit I haven't had much involvement in the custom ROM community in a few years, and I haven't really felt a need to use a custom ROM in some time as I have been using Moto, Nokia, Nexus, and Pixel devices for the most part for years and just a few tweaks here and there are good enough, but I went to look into other possibilities with my Pixel 3a XL recently and found there just isn't much of anything.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, I personally have stopped using custom ROMs after switching to a Pixel. Before this, I always was eager to install AOSP-based ROMs on my previous devices (Samsung and LG).
But especially LG is a disappointment software-wise: My LG G5 had a very good battery runtime with the initial ROM, but future updates killed this. Not to speak of non-existing updates and even security patches. My Samsungs were just awful from the start, they were immediately in dire need of AOSP.
On top, updating vendor images always was a PITA.. On my G5, I always had to do a clean flash, get rid of the bloat, flash the GApps etc.
But the Pixels are different. They also can have a bug here and there, but nothing severe. Battery runtime stays good with updates, and security patches always are on time. Updates are easy even when you are rooted.
Hence I just rooted my Pixel 3a XL and called it a day. Since Android 10 with its dark mode, I can even skip Substratum. YMMV of course, but this is how I see it.
I only root for system-wide adblock and HEBF Optimizer. Everything else is stock.
Custom Roms arent all (or even mostly) about features. There is so much more performance (and efficiency) to be had by building vs stock. Development will break loose soon enough. And when it does, then we will see what this device is truly capable of.
Does it seem like Google is attempting to push custom ROMs away from, or off of, their newer devices (Pixel 6 Pro)? From what I can gather reading the forums there are a lot of examples of custom ROMs that have onerous problems. But, maybe that is just the nature of the business, people tend to only post when they are having difficulties.
kcv_earner said:
Does it seem like Google is attempting to push custom ROMs away from, or off of, their newer devices (Pixel 6 Pro)? From what I can gather reading the forums there are a lot of examples of custom ROMs that have onerous problems. But, maybe that is just the nature of the business, people tend to only post when they are having difficulties.
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I don't think Google cares one way or another about custom roms. I don't think they do anything with custom roms in mind.
Lughnasadh said:
I don't think Google cares one way or another about custom roms. I don't think they do anything with custom roms in mind.
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Click to collapse
This.
Google does what is in their best favor, not for the niche hobbyists. Over the years, you could see the gradual move to making ROM developers lives more complicated.
Google could very easily move away from custom development if they wanted to. All they'd have to do is move to a private license and ditch the apache and gpl open source licenses and keep all source code private. This will never happen as part of the open source platform is contributions from users across the world to improve things. Technically they could release very little device specific source as well and it wouldn't be the end all.
My first phone I developed for was a Samsung Infuse 4g. Development stopped at gingerbread and Samsung never released ICS (android 4) for the infuse due to the almost complete overhaul needed. So no device source and no kernel source from Samsung. Guess what? Within a month or so myself and a few other developers had a nearly fully functional (think there was 1 or 2 very minor bugs) infuse 4g running ICS and kept going from there.
scott.hart.bti said:
Google could very easily move away from custom development if they wanted to. All they'd have to do is move to a private license and ditch the apache and gpl open source licenses and keep all source code private. This will never happen as part of the open source platform is contributions from users across the world to improve things. Technically they could release very little device specific source as well and it wouldn't be the end all.
My first phone I developed for was a Samsung Infuse 4g. Development stopped at gingerbread and Samsung never released ICS (android 4) for the infuse due to the almost complete overhaul needed. So no device source and no kernel source from Samsung. Guess what? Within a month or so myself and a few other developers had a nearly fully functional (think there was 1 or 2 very minor bugs) infuse 4g running ICS and kept going from there.
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Those were the good ol' days. I miss those times a lot.
scott.hart.bti said:
Google could very easily move away from custom development if they wanted to. All they'd have to do is move to a private license and ditch the apache and gpl open source licenses and keep all source code private. This will never happen as part of the open source platform is contributions from users across the world to improve things. Technically they could release very little device specific source as well and it wouldn't be the end all.
My first phone I developed for was a Samsung Infuse 4g. Development stopped at gingerbread and Samsung never released ICS (android 4) for the infuse due to the almost complete overhaul needed. So no device source and no kernel source from Samsung. Guess what? Within a month or so myself and a few other developers had a nearly fully functional (think there was 1 or 2 very minor bugs) infuse 4g running ICS and kept going from there.
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Click to collapse
Apart from the interest Google has in open and free contributors to the code, would that be legally possible for them to privatize and "close" Android code for Pixels given it is based on Linux? Would that fit the open source license of the original Linux platform?
scott.hart.bti said:
Google could very easily move away from custom development if they wanted to. All they'd have to do is move to a private license and ditch the apache and gpl open source licenses and keep all source code private. This will never happen as part of the open source platform is contributions from users across the world to improve things. Technically they could release very little device specific source as well and it wouldn't be the end all.
My first phone I developed for was a Samsung Infuse 4g. Development stopped at gingerbread and Samsung never released ICS (android 4) for the infuse due to the almost complete overhaul needed. So no device source and no kernel source from Samsung. Guess what? Within a month or so myself and a few other developers had a nearly fully functional (think there was 1 or 2 very minor bugs) infuse 4g running ICS and kept going from there.
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Click to collapse
Thank you all for the reply to my question. The reason I brought it up was because I was looking for any LOS 19 working for the Pixel 6 Pro. I was earlier directed to this one, but dev has changed.
neelchauhan said:
I am no longer working on this ROM. A13 blocks downgrading the bootloader. If you still want this, there are developer support images to downgrade with an updated bootloader.
To add, newer LOS19 builds don't boot on raviole, even the recovery fails.
I also switched to stock A13 for the time being.
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kcv_earner said:
Thank you all for the reply to my question. The reason I brought it up was because I was looking for any LOS 19 working for the Pixel 6 Pro. I was earlier directed to this one, but dev has changed.
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I wouldn't risk trying an a12 rom if you got a13 installed.
Custom roms are dieing for sure. The people left over are un friendly the builds nearly allways have bugs hence the amount of wingers the devs get which turns the devs into rude people. Majority of them have private sources they won't share. There dodgey ****s. I attempted to build a rom and failed and couldn't get any help. Instead every rom dev will ban u if u ask for help building there rom. Telegram is a **** storm. Mods on power trips. I have given up on the scene. Let it die with wild fire.
I start understand now a crew of 5 guys will never beat a company at there game. They might apply some patches or shot before the real devs release the proper os version but it not worth the actual bugs in the frame work. Who can trust the security of a team of guys to. They can do what they like to us from messing with the os put virus in it.
fil3s said:
I wouldn't risk trying an a12 rom if you got a13 installed.
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As long as the A13 bootloader is installed to both slots, the worst that could happen is the firmware would run poorly.