CyanogenMod 9 is stable; 10 is underway [LWN.net]

CyanogenMod 9 is stable; 10 is underway

Posted Aug 10, 2012 20:12 UTC (Fri) by tonyblackwell (subscriber, #43641)
Parent article: CyanogenMod 9 is stable; 10 is underway

From a potential first-user: If CM has abandoned the ability to control app permissions, what other reason is there to use it at all? From the outside it seemed this was the major reason for it's existence...

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CyanogenMod 9 is stable; 10 is underway

Posted Aug 10, 2012 21:06 UTC (Fri) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]

Many people feel that it's nice to have a 'unbranded' OS. I don't like all the custom software and settings that companies tend to ship on phones. I'd rather stick to having a open source OS as much as possible.

Besides having a 'default' Android experience you do end up with some special features and other things that Cyanogenmod enables.

Also as it's hinted to above, if you have a popular model that is well supported by Cyanogenmod then you can depend on them to produce updates for your OS so that you don't have to depend on your carrioer or phone manufacturer. Even if Cyanogenmod drops official support you can still get hacks and more independently minded variations to install on your phone.

If your in the USA, or other country with a like minded populace, and you choose to purchase a subsidized phone with carrier-branded OS then there is no question about the superiority of Cyanogenmod. No question at all.

CyanogenMod 9 is stable; 10 is underway

Posted Aug 10, 2012 22:21 UTC (Fri) by donbarry (guest, #10485) [Link]

It is certainly *one* major reason. The other is freedom from carrier bloatware/spyware/unreasonable restrictions.

That said, I'm rather disappointed that they did not make some effort to return some control to the user: not only is the ability to edit app permissions lost, but once a google account is attached, it is impossible to add device-local contacts (i.e., only cloud contacts can be entered).

One must wonder whether Kondik getting a job at Samsung has altered his allegiances.. He did fight against providing anonymizing data in a patch submission for CM7 -- because it would "piss off" carriers/Google. Well isn't the point that the device should serve *us*? If such a move caused pushback, then it would certainly reveal how these companies actually regard us -- the buyers of their hardware, but to them mere slaves and acolytes.

CyanogenMod 9 is stable; 10 is underway

Posted Aug 11, 2012 1:03 UTC (Sat) by rich0 (guest, #55509) [Link]

Support for permission revocation in CM has always been weak - it was there but tended to cause everything to force close, because of how it was implemented. LBE Privacy Guard just lies to applications so that they don't crash. I think that the design in CM was basically intended to fail, to essentially punish those who asked for it.

I don't think it is a conspiracy or anything, but I think you basically are hitting at the issue. Those with the strongest desires to contribute to android are also those most likely to seek employment in this area, and that means they don't want to tick off those who benefit from the revenue model.

The other issue is that the strongest contributors get quite a bit in the way of donations, which means they tend to have shiny new hardware, which means they tend not to spend as much time on older handsets as they used to.

I won't begrudge these people their day jobs - their work on Android is a donation of time and I can't really call them "traitors" for wanting employment. That said, forks that add in the features users like would be desirable. There is no reason somebody can't just maintain some patches and just parallel the CM releases. Then again, solutions like LBE Privacy Guard also work and are about as effective, but require less device-specific work to implement.

CyanogenMod 9 is stable; 10 is underway

Posted Aug 13, 2012 9:29 UTC (Mon) by micka (subscriber, #38720) [Link]

> Then again, solutions like LBE Privacy Guard also work and are about as effective, but require less device-specific work to implement

I didn't find much information on it, as for most apps it has a market page, and the rest is in chinese, so : is it free software ?