Cyngn, OnePlus, Micromax - The Legal Battle (Portal thread comments)

[pulser_g2]

This thread is available for comments on the featured portal article.

 

[Arrjaan]

Thanks for the extensive read! Too bad that a community project like CyanogenMod will be harmed through the company that controls it.. I am waiting for a move from OnePlus, they should be able to build a good case.

 

[munchy_cool]

it's a clear case of back biting by Cyanogen Inc. They have done this to a lot of developers when Cyanogen Inc was formed, and now they do this do their partner.

The emails sent by Kirt clearly show they were aware of what the agreement was, and that they had already decided to end the relationship with OnePlus. Those emails are rude as hell and I guess Kirt needs a rap for that.

Micromax is nothing but an Indian company who has put a brand name on Chinese phones. Yeps Chinese phones were very popular in India and with Android all they needed was to put a name on phones. Yes, they do sell like hot cakes because of the pricing but yes they are no-where close in terms of quality to HTC or Sony.

All in all, a bad move by Cyanogen and it's not the first time. Yes, they may be pioneers in the Android custom rom world but right now it's the success getting to them and they are going to fall hard.

What can I do about it, well ever since the incident with xplodwild I have stopped using CyanogenMod or any roms based of it. Yes, I want the latest Android version running on my device but not from someone who cheats and stabs people behind the back.

It's time for PA, Omni, Slimkat and others to rise to the occasion. Yes, building a rom as popular as CM will take time but patience is the key.

Over and Out.

Edit
One thing I forgot to mention, I am from India and trust me I would never buy a MicroMax device even if it's running CM. I wanted to buy a OnePlus One but after all the lies they had in the basket I had to pass. Yes, I want the latest hardware at the cheapest price but not from peeps who lie.

PS:- This is my personal opinion

Peace.

 

[emanoj.i9103]

Looking forward to California Case. Anyways, XDA has many AOSP roms other than CM running good on OPO. Any device that gets love of people/dev stays alive.

Looks little dangerous for startup hardware partners.

 

[guille26]

I'm an OnePlus and CM customer (not only a user, I've paid for their products) and I'm worried. I though OPO was going to be CM flagship and they were going to make an effort to show they can produce and deliver good software, I'm afraid I can't confirm that.
Of course Micromax is a more lucrative project but they have customers.
I chose OPO because of the hardware and because of CM, I've been using CM for years. I didn't chose this phone for the money, I could have paid $600 for another phone, I just didn't like any other phone, I trust Nexus line mostly because of the software but I don't like Nexus 6 so CM software was a nice solution at the time.
So my next phone won't come with CM since I can't trust this company anymore. For me the most important point to choose a phone is software support and CM is no different than Samsung or LG updating their products.

 

[DrNinjaa]

Thats Ridiculously Buggy

I don't understand how childish The cyanogen team's action to send an email and just cut off a tie with legally well documented contract with oneplus.by the way,its us...the users will suffer the most.Maybe oneplus will move on with the launch of their own ROM for their devices but I doubt cyanogenmod's future and reputation in the Dev forums...

 

[wajahebat]

Kirt deserved my piss.

They (Cyanogen Inc) have dropped the development dreams since back then when Cyanogen Inc was up and running. And since then too so many good dev's noticed it and left Cyanogen Inc to start a better one like Omni's/PA's.

It is sad to see a super-great phone development, aimed for the enthusiasts, went this way. Cyanogen = Bad for business. They were like stupid cartels in Mexico downtown. Their rom is not that excellent anyway, i am more interested on AOSP-based team nowadays.

 

[Entropy512]

I'm an OnePlus and CM customer (not only a user, I've paid for their products) and I'm worried. I though OPO was going to be CM flagship and they were going to make an effort to show they can produce and deliver good software, I'm afraid I can't confirm that.
Of course Micromax is a more lucrative project but they have customers.
I chose OPO because of the hardware and because of CM, I've been using CM for years. I didn't chose this phone for the money, I could have paid $600 for another phone, I just didn't like any other phone, I trust Nexus line mostly because of the software but I don't like Nexus 6 so CM software was a nice solution at the time.
So my next phone won't come with CM since I can't trust this company anymore. For me the most important point to choose a phone is software support and CM is no different than Samsung or LG updating their products.

One thing I have to say is - I've spoken to one member of OnePlus' new internal software team. If the rest of the team as as competent as he is (as in: I know his work and he's smart), they'll do well.

You make a good point - Cyngn is doing a lot of things that people used to go to CyanogenMod to get away from. What is interesting is that OEMs are also noticing this market trend, which is why you're seeing Motorola put forth minimal skinning (a massive difference from the disaster that was Blur), and Sony's skins are fairly light and minimal. (In my opinion, they are done with enough care that they're almost always a positive improvement. Sony devices are the only ones where I've frequently found no desire to unlock the bootloader to flash something else or even to root. My Xperia Z3 is STILL, after more than a month, bone-stock. I'll eventually work on Omni for it, but right now... It's nice and solid as it is, it would be hard to improve upon that.)

Similarly, OnePlus' new team are intelligent enough to realize that just by doing a base Qualcomm CAF bringup with a few minor tweaks, you can actually do far better than the OEMs that go overboard with ricing.

As to Kirt - of interest is his past work. He was the founder of Boost Mobile.

Also of interest is that Cyngn has signed a pretty juicy exclusivity deal with an OEM that is universally hated in those areas where Cyanogen has brand recognition.

 

[munchy_cool]

Also of interest is that Cyngn has signed a pretty juicy exclusivity deal with an OEM that is universally hated in those areas where Cyanogen has brand recognition.

We Indians change our phones a lot. The reason for that is we are not tied to any carrier contracts with our devices, we buy them at full price. We loose our phones, break them, they get stolen whatever be the reason but we change phones whether it's by choice or by force.

That's one the reasons we cannot spend 50,000 INR on a device every time we buy one, we have to look for cheap options and that's where Micromax cashed in. Touchscreen phones from a brand for less than 15,000 INR is good enough.

Very rarely do people care about the quality, all they want is a touch screen phone. Now the nerds and techies like us know the truth about Mediatek devices and that's why we prefer OEM's like HTC, Samsung, Sony etc.

But Micromax, No way! I was even surprised when Google tied up Micromax, karbonn and Spice. All of these supposed OEM's have just rebranded Chinese phones and put Android on them.

The only truly Indian OEM which I had hope from was Notion Ink, but they couldn't compete with the big guns.

 

[vvarma1]

"as long as OnePlus didn’t breach the agreement in the first 30 days, Cyanogen “shall not engage in the integration of CyanogenMod with any other mobile device manufacturer for the purpose of distributing such device in the permitted territory”."

This part of the article is incorrect as if you look at what was actually written in the report it states:

"Provided OnePlus is not in breach of this Agreement, for a period of thirty (30) days after the Launch Date, Cyanogen shall not engage in the integration of CyanogenMod with any other mobile device manufacturer..."


If you look at the position of the comma in the actual statement in the report, you can see that these conditions are only applicable for the first 30 days after launch

 

[WA_Bob]

How disheartening that Cyanogen has gone so corporate so fast. I wonder if it's just the new faces they have for the company and Steve Kondik & Co. were as surprised by what happened as OnePlus was. I can't imagine the actual devs have changed that much, but they definitely let the new corporate "suits" they hired run them into the ground fast.......

 

[Hetalk]

How disheartening that Cyanogen has gone so corporate so fast. I wonder if it's just the new faces they have for the company and Steve Kondik & Co. were as surprised by what happened as OnePlus was. I can't imagine the actual devs have changed that much, but they definitely let the new corporate "suits" they hired run them into the ground fast.......

This isn't even corporate. This is like kids playing monopoly.
How can you terminate a contract, by just a one line email?
Sadly, I'm running CM on 4 of my devices(including the 1+1). I think I'll go and find alternatives now.

 

[Primokorn]

I guess we can almost sum up all these disputes through this sentence: "... choosing to not issue updates to a device for political [and economic] reasons". Business is business. We do not care about users.
Political & economic purposes against faith & community.

 

[pulser_g2]

"as long as OnePlus didn’t breach the agreement in the first 30 days, Cyanogen “shall not engage in the integration of CyanogenMod with any other mobile device manufacturer for the purpose of distributing such device in the permitted territory”."

This part of the article is incorrect as if you look at what was actually written in the report it states:

"Provided OnePlus is not in breach of this Agreement, for a period of thirty (30) days after the Launch Date, Cyanogen shall not engage in the integration of CyanogenMod with any other mobile device manufacturer..."


If you look at the position of the comma in the actual statement in the report, you can see that these conditions are only applicable for the first 30 days after launch

Well spotted, I had already rectified this in the article and marked it as a correction, then I saw this comment. You are correct in that the exclusivity on integration assistance was a 30 day deal.

 

[dibblebill]

So my question is, will this mean that CM is going to stop updating international OPO's in the future? That's going to piss a lot of people off, and I'm going to have to be the one to explain to my fiance why my phone advice to her turned bad.

Might be time for me to convince her to let me replace it with Omni or something else.

 

[pulser_g2]

So my question is, will this mean that CM is going to stop updating international OPO's in the future? That's going to piss a lot of people off, and I'm going to have to be the one to explain to my fiance why my phone advice to her turned bad.

Might be time for me to convince her to let me replace it with Omni or something else.

From what Kirk said ("Carl. We will be terminating our relationship with one plus. I will get back to you with more details shortly."), there might well be issues. Nobody knows, but that kind of message seems rather like CM are ending working with 1+.

It is rather unusual though - you don't "break" a contract by telling the other party you will do it, and send details later. That's just not how you do business. You negotiate the specifics, and try to have a clean, quiet, and drama-free break-up, without headlines or press releases. Both sides would discuss the terms and settlements, and legal would sign off on it. That's how it usually works. In this case, this is highly unusual.

 

[dibblebill]

From what Kirk said ("Carl. We will be terminating our relationship with one plus. I will get back to you with more details shortly."), there might well be issues. Nobody knows, but that kind of message seems rather like CM are ending working with 1+.

It is rather unusual though - you don't "break" a contract by telling the other party you will do it, and send details later. That's just not how you do business. You negotiate the specifics, and try to have a clean, quiet, and drama-free break-up, without headlines or press releases. Both sides would discuss the terms and settlements, and legal would sign off on it. That's how it usually works. In this case, this is highly unusual.

Yeah, that struck me as REALLY strange and more than a little bit off-putting. I agree, it is certainly not "usual behavior", even among backstabbing companies out there.

I'm wondering if I shouldn't root her device for her, TiBackup everything, and migrate her to another ROM or something.

 

[vasili_defy]

Well spotted, I had already rectified this in the article and marked it as a correction, then I saw this comment. You are correct in that the exclusivity on integration assistance was a 30 day deal.

So that means One plus One broke their side of contracts , since Cyno' went ahead and entered into agreement with Micromax.
It will be pretty nice to keep tabs on this topic as it enters into Californian Courts,
As I am pretty much sure that this will be having much (bad?) effect on the whole Licensing ecosystem of Android modding (say like Slimkat, PA etc whoever decides in future to go Cyano way.)
ps : It seems the funny part that " Sent from Ipad "sig was not noticed by Kirk while sending the email.

 

[Pko66]

So, CM has become something to avoid... very, very sad.

As previously said, all this clearly shows that unfortunately CM (the company) has no interest in the benefit of its users, and they only intention is in lining their pockets as soon as possible, by any means and forgetting any ethics. So, that also means that as users we should avoid CM and any device or system that depends on it, and so reccomend to NOT BUY devices as those form OnePlus and MicroMax that uses it: CM has become a stain that corrupts the devices on which it resides. Lets hope OnePlus develops as soon as possible an alternate OS ***AND RELEASES IT IN AN OPEN ENOUGH LICENSE*** so we can reccomend its devices again to our friends. Also, lets hope that, if CM (the company) has any legal responsabilities as it appears to be, they become clear soon enough in a judgement and if so, any repairement measures are made available to OnePlus because they seem to be, after end users, the most wronged party in this sad development.

In my opinion, the truly back guys in this story are clearly those running the company CM.

 

[zacdroidfan]

Not so fast.

People who wanted to switch, how about waiting for a OnePlus made ROM to come out next year? Lollipop based
https://forums.oneplus.net/threads/contest-oneplus-rom-you-name-it.208689/