A fork in the road

Last week, we released the final CM-13.0 releases, updated to the latest security patches, in anticipation of what follows.

Yesterday, Cyanogen Inc (Cyngn) announced that they were shutting down the infrastructure behind CyanogenMod (CM). This is an action that was not unpredictable given the public departure of Kondik (cyanogen himself) from the company, and with him our last remaining advocate inside Cyngn’s leadership.

In addition to infrastructure being retired, we in the CM community have lost our voice in the future direction of CM – the brand could be sold to a third party entity as it was an asset that Kondik risked to start his business and dream. Even if we were to regroup and rebuild our own infrastructure, continuing development of CM would mean to operate with the threat of sale of the brand looming over our heads. Then there is the stigma that has grown to be attached to anything named ‘Cyanogen’. Many of you reading this have been champions of clarifying that the CM product and CyngnOS were distinct, yet the stain of many PR actions from Cyngn is a hard one to remove from CM. Given CM’s reliance on Cyngn for monetary support and the shared source base, it’s not hard to understand why the confusion remains.

It will come as no surprise that this most recent action from Cyngn is definitely a death blow for CyanogenMod.

However, CM has always been more than the name and more than the infrastructure. CM has been a success based on the spirit, ingenuity and effort of its individual contributors – back when it was Kondik in his home, to the now thousands of contributors past and present.

Embracing that spirit, we the community of developers, designers, device maintainers and translators have taken the steps necessary to produce a fork of the CM source code and pending patches. This is more than just a ‘rebrand’. This fork will return to the grassroots community effort that used to define CM while maintaining the professional quality and reliability you have come to expect more recently.

CM has served the community well over its 8 long years. It has been our home, bringing together friends from all over the world to celebrate our joy of building and giving. Its apt then that on this Eve of a holiday we pay our respects. We will take pride in our Lineage as we move forward and continue to build on its legacy.

Thank you & Goodbye,
The CyanogenMod Team

  • Oreo

    WHAT THE HELL

  • Zack

    So, what exactly is this saying? They’re keeping up CM but just rebranding it?

  • Nicholas Matranga

    rip CyanogenMod

  • Fan guy

    What is Happening?!

  • Orvon Freeman

    sorry to see this happening I have used CM7 Since my HTC Aria. I hope that more info is released soon so those of us using current CM products can make the transition. Hopefully the new fork will be available for other rom makers as well that are based of CM

  • Orvon Freeman

    that is my understanding and the current stuff is being abandoned

  • Brøssøvítçh

    Does this mean that in the future, I’ll need to rely on OEM Android? I think this completely kills Android for me.
    Sad times, Happy Xmas?

  • Zack

    Well, I’m still not sure exactly how to feel.

  • luca020400

    Small hint for everyone, check the last link 😉

  • Orvon Freeman

    no not at all thats not what the Devs are saying

  • https://plus.google.com/113132904267306492202 Jishnu Dey

    Welcome Lineage!! Excited for the new things.
    Merry Christmas everyone!!

  • Shrukul Habib

    Not lineage! Some other, cool name pls!

    And no worries, I’m pretty sure open source cm will triumph!

  • marcos júnior

    where? can u show me with a prinscreen or another hint?

  • Orvon Freeman

    CM will still be around but will be rebranded. Some of the old CM stuff wont work. But the new stuff will be more in line with the old old CM style. Back before it became a company.

  • Orvon Freeman

    IKR but that involves work lol. Cant wait to see what they do with it

  • Orvon Freeman

    so when will first builds be coming to us 😉

  • YouNex

    R.i.p

  • Orvon Freeman

    just click the link

  • brainimpact

    click the word lineage

  • YouNex

    What will happen to all the Cyanogen and CyanogenMod accounts?

  • Rob Cook

    Wait, not a single when will it be released for my device post? You guys are slipping 😉

  • Malcolm Williams

    Whoa. It’s dead

  • Ahmad El-Ibrahim

    Thank you and goodbye! CyanogenMod was great to us and continuing with the lineage into Lineage sounds like a right step.

  • madcanada

    Sad to see nighlies being gone, 2016 just keeps on taking. Having said that I feel it’s a good move to go back to the old CM ways. Hopefully we get to see an Android 7 based (insert name) release.

  • Xan

    Wow! I never expected this, I’ve been using cyanogenmod since JesusFreak jacked it in and cyanogen picked it up.

    Where will we get our information about the fork? Fork-Q is a good name BTW

  • Brøssøvítçh

    I know its going to be Community based, and my device maintainer has been doing unofficial builds on a private server for a while now. But without regulation wjos to say unofficial builds are really safe? And who knows about all the other ROMs out there too? Many are purely based on CM sources. I don’t think much will change. But the article says they’re removing the infrastructure. I think that means no more Official builds and no more CM jenkins. All builds will need to be built privately and released at the builders discretion. Man, I don’t even have a working video camera yet! Hahaha. Going to miss CM. I won’t know how to choose a device now, I always chose by specs, if rootable, & if CM is available. RIP CM.

  • Orvon Freeman

    I agree TBH I have felt CM is not as slim as it used to be. I enjoy running a truly minimal android and if I want to add something I can. that to me is what CM used to be. The core Android with only a few features and was crazy small

  • Orvon Freeman

    My guess it there will be another announcement

  • Connor Tumbleson

    For those that worked on Cyngn and lost their jobs – – you didn’t deserve this and CyanogenMod didn’t deserve this either.

    Good luck on a new adventure.

  • http://www.youtube.com/urmilshroff Urmil Shroff

    R.I.P. CyanogenMod 🙁🌹

  • http://oostingwebdesign.nl Cédian Oosting

    When will we see the updated site? Any ETA? 😉 RIP CM, on such a good day, but welcome to the new just born Lineage, which is in its infant time.

  • andro

    Why Lineage?
    There’s already OmniRom keeping the community spirit!

  • Ex Night Siabato

    :( is sad …
    I was prepared for the problems … but I was not prepared for this! https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/de76e617e1afa68ccb68370737fca3c1abd1a67e008477dbf17f9d7ad79bd02d.jpg

  • Vladimir Jz

    Triste leer esto, no queda mas que agradecer el trabajo de tantos años, les deseamos mucho éxito al Cyanogenmod Team. We will miss you CM.

  • Jim Carter

    I’ve used CyanogenMod since my HTC Dream (G1).
    For the name of the new distro I suggest NCCN, the chemical formula for cyanogen. And for a 3rd topic in one post, I think a “modular” conventional
    distro with zillions of packages is a better model for development than a
    monolithic writeable “ROM”.

  • andro

    Don’t ask for an ETA. Never.

  • Debopriyo Basu

    Yeah I too believe open source development would never die… Whatever be its name. A big thank you to the passionate developers who worked night and day to bring us rims which enhanced our devices. Hope Lineage returns as an even better ROM which doesn’t depend upon the decision of some overambitious people. It just remains as a global healthy developer community.

  • http://oostingwebdesign.nl Cédian Oosting

    Look for Lineage

  • http://oostingwebdesign.nl Cédian Oosting

    I know, that’s the joke.

  • vndergrovnd

    So basically Cyanogenmod is just going to be rebranded to LineageOS, right? Besides that everything stays relatively the same? Timely updates, close to stock android, etc?

  • Edvinas Stankūnas

    When are going to release cm 14 for HTC one m7??????
    Just kidding… Good luck, we love you and the community is pretty screwed without cm code, so… we love you :)

  • Ivan Carapovic

    Although I will miss CyanogenMod as the name and everything it has been over the past years, I have also noticed that a lot of things that were removed from the ROM down the road, and somehow the development continued, but without the “wow” effect it once had.

    Back in the HTC Desire days, I would flash to get new stuff, more space, security, customization, speed etc. Today, I flash basically to clear OEMs bloatware. CM today just doesn’t offer that much it once offered. This could well be (and it indeed seems so) because the whole CyanogenOS/Inc thing.

    Im really looking forward to this transformation, as it could mean that LineageOS will now continue with the same passion and inovations like CM in the Gingerbread days.
    Can’t wait to install a fresh ROM and to feel again the same excitement for new features like a kid opening Christmas presents.

  • Wilfred Zweverink

    Thanks for everything folks, see you soon, merry Xmas.

  • saqlain rattansi

    I just started using CM..

    I’m so sad.. Idk if I should buy this Chinese phone I want to now…

  • neonoafs

    We will miss you SO MUCH! CM is very important for Android. I think Android will lose a good part of their users, just because the end of CM.

  • Allen Bethea

    How about the name “Calvin” as In Dr Susan Calvin, I Robot.

  • Harsh Iyer

    It was gr8 to use Cyanogenmod. I loved it and used it more than my stock ROM. It’s not a farewell afterall. Hope soon LineageOS will release and will be far more gr8tr than CyanogeMod. Best Of Luck Guyzz.

  • https://f1saikat.wordpress.com/ Saikat Kundu

    Yes it is indeed a bad news for all of us who are a devotee on CyanogenMod. But I like to think it is a good news for us. Lineage could remove all the stigma that CyanOS created over the year. It will be truly open source now.

  • stek29

    It seems so.

  • Latheryin

    Most roms stopped using cm as a base a long time ago. If people get lucky then they will trash all the code and start over so they can fix the bugs that they introduced years ago. They will also need to remove people from blindly merging untested code which caused people to stop using their code to begin with.