Adrian,
who of us has not a private life? We all do and we all deserve one. No doubt about it. However, what I did when I edited the kernel of the Huawei Mediapad or when I wrote my USB-to-Ethernet-Helper even if I ceased developing (because of too little time and other commitments) I always checked the forum at least every two days and provided explanation or at least a helping word as far as I could. I don't want people hanging around waiting for something that is never going to happen. Let's be fair to one another and not waste precious time!
Rom cooking is something that's very laborious and veeeeery time consuming that's why I never went into this business and rest assured I admire those folks who devote their time and tremendous effort to make a new Rom happen. Quite terrific. But it is also true that Rom port users want to enjoy a Rom where the features they want to use are in fact usable. If they need facebook messenger badly and it doesn't work, well they skip the Rom and revert to stock. What else are they supposed to do? But what's the purpose of this Rom then?
Personally, I don't need zillions of Rom ports, I need a working one with a recent kernel with as little bugs as goes. Yes, sure, cooking several Roms with the same kernel and they all suffer from the same bugs because these bugs are hard to squash since they need to be fixed somewhere in the depths of the Android system or even somewhere in the kernel video driver (for instance) is easier than getting right at the culprit. Yes, sometimes knowledge is missing or time or resources, you name it. If there is at least another developer, you can buddy up and support each other. If you are left alone, well, developer support of this type of device is more often than not running out in the near future.
The sad truth here on XDA forums is, we suffer from many, tooo many devices and too few developers for all these devices. Also it is forbidden to charge money for one's development efforts. Donation is ok, but who can live from donations??? Rom cooking takes soooo much time and if you want to do it so that 95% of the people are satisfied with your Roms you need so much knowledge, too. No wonder developers withdraw their favor from old smartphones and turn to newer, more exiting ones, where manufacturer support is better.
Cheers,
dfahren
