Distributions

CyanogenMod contemplates an app store

The big question that is on everyone's mind when it comes to CyanogenMod these days is "when might we see Ice Cream Sandwich on device xyzzy?" Work on the ICS-based CyanogenMod 9 (CM9) proceeds apace, but trying to get any kind of estimate would undoubtedly violate the first rule of CyanogenMod: "you don't ask for ETAs". There are a couple of different interesting things going on in CM-land right now, beyond all of the work on bringing ICS to the many supported devices.

Two things in CM developer Koushik Dutta's Google+ post from January 10 stand out: the idea of a CyanogenMod App Store is gaining some traction, and that CM is approaching one million unique installs. While one million users is a pretty significant number, it's still a drop in the bucket compared to Android devices overall (which have 700,000 registrations per day at last count). Still, it is quite an achievement for the project.

Incidentally, the numbers gathered by CM come from the opt-in CMStats program that users are asked to enable at first-boot time. Undoubtedly, some users don't, so it's likely that CM has already surpassed the million-user mark. Since CMStats checks in on each boot, though, it is a reliable source of data for counting "unique, active, user installs", as Dutta put it.

The app store idea comes about for a couple of different reasons. Apps that required rooted devices have a tendency to get kicked out of the Android Market, presumably because the carriers don't like them. Other unpopular app types include emulators for older video game systems (without the ROMs that would clearly be a copyright violation), one-click rooting, and tethering apps. Dutta is thinking that an app store that is not under the thumb of Google and the carriers would provide one-stop shopping for those kinds of apps.

The "shopping" part is important. Dutta and project founder Steve Kondik see a CM app store as a way to generate revenue to help support the project's development. If a portion of the revenue from such a store went to the project, it could cover some of its increasing hardware and server costs. As Dutta mentions, there is no reason that it would be limited only to CM installs either as any alternate Android ROM could include it (presumably with some kind of revenue sharing deal).

Based on the overwhelmingly positive reaction to the Google+ posting (it reached the 500 comment limit in less than a day) it seems like an idea with some legs. In fact, a follow-up posting would seem to indicate that Dutta has started working on code for the app store. Several commenters brought up issues that a CM app store would need to address, including ensuring app quality (and security/privacy), but overall, it would appear there are quite a few users interested in a single place to get "banned" apps.

While there have been no CM9 progress updates since one was posted to the blog on December 2, there are a lot of CM9 "KANG" (unofficial) builds floating around in threads on the XDA-developers site and elsewhere. No official builds have yet appeared, though, not even release candidates or nightlies as yet. In the meantime, one can either be patient or go ahead and build CM9 from the source.

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Tizen releases some code

The Tizen project has announced the release of an initial set of source repositories and an alpha SDK. "Today we are posting a set of pre-release tools to give application developers an early look at Tizen. These tools, together with their corresponding documentation and source code, will provide developers with information required to become familiar with Tizen development."

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bits from the DPL for December 2011

Debian Project Leader Stefano 'Zack' Zacchiroli has a few short bits on his December activities. Topics include Wheezy artwork organization, Auditor work ramping up, and more. "I've gladly accepted an invite by representatives of other distributions to join a panel at FOSDEM 2012 about local user groups (e.g. Fedora ambassadors, LoCo groups for Ubuntu, etc)."

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Long term support for Xubuntu, Kubuntu and Edubuntu

The upcoming Ubuntu 12.04 will be a Long Term Support (LTS) release. The Ubuntu technical board has approved applications from the Xubuntu, Kubuntu and Edubuntu for these variants to also enjoy LTS.

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Distribution newsletters

• Debian Project News (January 9)
• DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 438 (January 9)
• Fedora Weekly News Issue 289 (January 3)
• Maemo Weekly News (January 9)
• Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter, Issue 247 (January 8)

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Is Mandriva Finished This Time? (OStatic)

OStatic reports that Mandriva may be about to shut down. "On the Mandriva Forum, Raphaël Jadot, a long-time contributor, wrote, 'everything was fine, but there is a big problem: a minor shareholder (Linlux) refuses the capital injection required for Mandriva to continue, even though the Russian investor had offered to bear it alone. Except turnaround Mandriva should cease activity Jan. 16.' No further details were made available there. But as news crept around the various forums more did emerge."

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Ubuntu TV unveiled (PC Pro)

PC Pro has a brief report on the "Ubuntu TV" offering revealed by Canonical at the Consumer Electronics Show. "[Jane] Silber told us Canonical was in discussions with a number of television manufacturers, but couldn't confirm any signed deals. It will face stiff competition from Google - which only last week added LG to its roster of Google TV manufacturers - and Apple, which is widely tipped to be working on an internet television after making little impact with successive generations of its Apple TV hardware."

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