Incorporated != publicly owned. All a corporation exists as is a group of people banding together to get tax and other benefits collectively. There's none of the other folderol about profit motive or fiduciary duty or the other pressures on megacorps to act unethically.
So because someone wants to make a living on something they love they're untrustworthy? I agree I would rather have open source applications running on my phone, however I also feel it is a good thing they are monetizing their efforts. I prefer a more stock version of android, but any additions to the android ecosystem strengthens its ability.
I _literally_ installed CM10 on my Samsung Galaxy S2 the hard way today, spending nearly 8 hours getting the right tools, the android sdk, figuring out why adb would not find my device and after a ton of cursing finally got it to load.
And then I had to also install gapps by using the Clockwordmod recovery mode.
A gigantic pain in the ass! I wish I would have attempted this tomorrow, would have saved me a ton of trouble!
I went through exactly the same process about 15 months ago but I'm glad I did. I understand Android specifically and phone operating systems in general more now than I did before.
Me too. Superfluous knowledge to me, however. Could I have traded that learning time for something that was generally useful to me I'd have done so in a heartbeat. Dumbing this process down is an excellent direction.
CyanogenMod dramatically improved the experience on my first droid (which was a very cheap one, to see what all the fuss was about.) It couldn't solve the hardware issues (crappy resistive touch screen) but it sure made the device more responsive and usable, in spite of that.
I'm pleased to see them making the install process easier. I wasn't quite heart-in-mouth since it was a £50 second hand and spare phone, but it was still pretty long winded and there were too many opportunities to brick the thing.
Because of the resistive touchscreen, I literally had to type using a pen[1] to push the keys, as my fingers (in fact, thumbs since that's what we actually type with on phones) would always hit the wrong key. Once I used the corner of a ruler as I didn't have the pen handy - scratched the screen really badly.
I saw a few negative reviews on Google Play arguing that a turn key solution might let some people not read the detailed instructions, warnings and risks thoroughly. Being a CM user, I must say I agree with this. Reminds me of a thread in XDA where a post read - If you are asking the question what is root, then you probably don't need it (paraphrasing).
Let alone the instructions/warnings/risks, I know many Android users who barely go through the permissions they grant an app during installation.
A little off topic, but an instance that I thought impressed the gravity of the risks and partly cracked me up was the warning on Alpharev [1] "Warning: Make sure you have read all the warnings below before attempting to run this utility!"
> Let alone the instructions/warnings/risks, I know many Android users who barely go through the permissions they grant an app during installation.
There's a reason for this. I do go through the permissions that apps ask for, which is why I end up never upgrading any apps.
The hugest problem is that the permissions are all ridiculously open-ended. There are apps that ask for permissions there's no reason for them to have; that's not what I'm complaining about here. I've installed apps where every permission they ask for is something they obviously need in order to function at all -- or, I should say, includes something they obviously need in order to function. The permissions are so inclusive that every app is allowed to do terrible things if it's able to function at all. This isn't an improvement over the windows XP model of "everything runs as administrator".
And so, if you're going to be installing apps, there is no reason to read the permissions they request. Any permission you give is enough for the app to screw you over 1000 different ways.
I'd have to agree with the sentiment about, "if you are asking what root is" and not needing a custom rom. I rooted my first couple android phones (first being the original G1), and my most recent (Nexus 4) I didn't need to (yet), it's still seeing regular updates, and wifi tethering is in the box. I might once it's no longer receiving updates, but will likely sticking with what I have for another year.
I think that for the most part, it's a risk.. the first few years of tablets really needed third party updates, because first party were horrible.. same for some phones. I also find that mfg skins are equally bad. That said, clear warnings, even multiple warnings are important.
When I rooted my G1, IIRC, there were several downloads I needed.. downgrade X, upgrade Y, root, upgrade X, install C, then B, then R... then apply GAPPS, etc. It was very unnerving, and that was important for me to triple check everything. I needed the extra functionality... While, as a user, I appreciate a click/next/next/done experience. It just depends on the risks.
Note: I have the same paranoia when updating a computer CMOS/BIOS
(I have installed CM in the past myself on my old phone, but have not done it yet with this phone because last time it was a pain in the ass to install, and was unstable to boot)
It is linked from the blog entry, but I cannot find the windows side installer linked from their homepage while the android side software is.
This sort of oversight is incredibly frustrating for me, and I consider myself fairly technically capable... I can only imagine that this is even more frustrating for more typical users.
Ah, now I see what you mean. I'd say they're waiting to move it out of "beta". The level of stupid questions they get already is reasonably high, so this may be a way of reducing their support load.
I can understand waiting to move it out of beta, but their main page is already linking to one half of the software (clicking 'get started' bumps you over to the play store for the android half).
This is a sorta common thing to do when installing complex software; especially hacks like this that could be detected as a rootkit. If during the install, some anti-virus decidecs to quarantine a file and the updating of hyper-sensitive data locations(firmware/bootloader/etc) fails at some random block I/O .... that device is finished, unless you have the right JTAG unit, have the stock(proprietary) binaries, have the chip-schematics for the pin-outs...
I realise that, but it doesn't sound like the CyanogenMod installer is using Android rootkits or anything like that so wouldn't it be better to test it against a few AVs?
I think Cyanogenmod can be considered dangerous to your device. And to be honest, I actually do think AVs should flag it. It's a good barrier to entry.
A user that doesn't trust the developers of Cyanogenmod enough to turn of AV(or add to AV-ignore-list) during install, is a user that shouldn't be using Cyanogenmod to begin with imho.
Where's the install step that asks the user to verify the origin and hash of the installer binary? Why can't I see the source of the installer? Where are the GPG keys?
It's not just some game you're downloading, it's a ROM for the device you're (statistically) putting the details of your life into. Trust? Don't get me started.
Edit:
>beta.download.cyanogenmod.org uses an invalid security certificate.
>The certificate is only valid for the following names:
> *.cyanogenmod.org , cyanogenmod.org
In my opinion, anti-virus should be turned off and uninstalled. AV software kills performance, and has false positives and false negatives all the time, and just screws up systems all the time.
It's really not worth it; you're going to have a bad time unless you take care to not install junk. (junk may include all microsoft and adobe software ...)
I suppose I should add the disclaimer that I've used primarily linux for 6 years and rebooted into OS X for gaming for a couple years now. But I've seen it all with Windows + AV, I've serviced computers for common folk, and we still see stories on HN about AV accidentally quarantining a dll needed to boot.
(I'm quite annoyed by the current developments in cyanogenmod: Less and less is open source as it seems...)