0xfeedface Tech musings and rants

CyanogenMod is a popular custom firmware written by a dude that goes by the name of Cyanogen for certain Android-powered devices. He works hard to produce a great product with few bugs and many enhancements. All the Android devices I've owned have run CyanogenMod at some point of time. My Nexus One currently runs CyanogenMod.

Ultimate Droid is another custom firmware for Verizon's Droid. The beauty of opensource is the ability to incorporate other's work into your work. The issue at stake is that the administrators of Ultimate Droid ripped Cyanogen's firmware without giving Cyanogen proper credit. Ultimate Droid is claiming completely original work. Cyanogen approached Ultimate Droid on their forums. The forum administrators quickly deleted Cyanogen's posts and banned him from the forums.

I love the concept of opensource. I love being able to see the inner workings of programs and fix bugs myself. I love being able to mod software to do what I want it to do without resorting to nasty hacks. What gets me is ripping code without giving credit. I admit to using other's code in my projects (both professional and hobby), but I always give credits where they're due. It's common courtesy. Not giving credit will land you in the same trouble Ultimate Droid is running into now. They're losing their userbase and potential users simply because they stole code.

Props to Cyanogen for creating an awesome firmware and calling others out on stealing his hard work.