Our team of Android Advices were a part of media at the Droidcon 2011 Event, where we got a chance to take an exclusive interview of the owner of CyanogenMod, Diogo Ferreira. He shared his insights about the cyanogenmod, its plans in future and the various stuff related to it.
Here is the entire interview with Diogo, and below the video you could read the transcript of the interview if you are running on a slow internet connection and would prefer to read the interview:
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edvS9mbgrX8
The conversations was between Amit Bhawani, Diogo Ferreira, Neal Pradeep and Chetan Bhawani. Below is the transcript:
Amit: We have a blog called AndroidAdvices.co and we cover the SamFirmware, CyanogenMod and the other Stock Roms. We have a few questions, and here is Neal Pradeep.
Neal: As you had said in the presentation that there is no funding for Cyanogenmod right now, so would you be coming with some plans in future where you would have some earning plans?
Diogo: As of now we have no such plans. In the future, we might be thinking to have something but right now we have no business plans.
Neal: Many of the users who got their phones flashed while trying to boot their phone using the CyanogenMod and we received complains about that. Is there a way to get back to the original ROM? We indeed saw a tutorial on that but when people restore the ROM and it stucks up there fails.
Diogo: There are several tutorials and tips given by users on the XDA developer section, and on our website by many random users who tried to get things back to normal and succeeded, but its hard for us to keep a track of things and put out the tips for restoring for all the devices, and believe me, its hard to brick a phone and am telling this from my personal experience. And people tend to follow the instructions that are given in the official websites, and not of those which are shared by others’ experience on the various forums. Sometimes it is better to follow the official instructions too, but not always.
Amit: But how about an option where just like people could backup their data like SMS through Samsung Kies for their Samsung device, if at all they wanted to use the CyanogenMod, if there was an option for them to backup the Stock rom and then upgrade to the custom ROM and whenever they feel like selling their phone, just hitting the restore button could take them back to the stock ROM and there would be no warranty issues for that?
Diogo: There is actually a tool already by us, called ROM Manager using which you could do the same, backing up the data and restoring.
Amit: So that would be just the phone data and not the ROM being backed up?
Diogo: No it backs up and recovers the phone data, the ROM image and any other data which you need to backup and later restore whenever you want to. The process again depends on the device, like the way backing up and restoring works with the Sony Ericsson phones is not the same as it is in Samsung phones.
Neal: As you are saying that its easy to do with the Sony Ericsson phones, but the main problem with Sony Ericsson phones is the bootloaders, won’t that cause a problem for everyone?
Diogo: For Sony Ericsson, from this year 2011, there are the unlock codes available in the market using which one can avoid the problems and run the phone normally.
Neal: But once someone purchases and uses those codes, won’t that void the warranty on the phone?
Diogo: Not exactly. If you read the terms and conditions, you can find that if a device stops functioning, it isn’t the fault of the user.
Amit: Let’s say I am a normal Android user and have no knowledge about the developer part of Android, still can I contribute to CyanogenMod? Is there a basic tutorial on how do we create custom ROM or how do we get started with all this stuff?
Diogo: To start off, there is the Wiki which would show what all has to be done to get started very easily. Through Wiki you can find how to fetch a source, how to build the ROM, how to make changes and how to submit it.. and if at all people feel that isn’t enough, we are open for any questions and to help.
We actually have day jobs and work on CM during nights so we won’t be able to work all the time on it, and so asking in the forums is the best thing as some or the other developer would take up the question and try to work on it.
Amit: How do you fund the project? SamFirmware charges people around $20 for becoming a premium member and get regular updates and far better MODs than the normal users. So do you have any funding ideas in mind?
Diogo: We don’t have lot of funding problems as we don’t have much expenses. The expenses would be bandwidth which is given for free by TD Revolution, which is the hosting company that supports CM and then we don’t have any other needs, so we don’t have funding problems.
Amit: Do you accept donations or something for the other expenses?
Diogo: Yes and no, we don’t really ask for donations but we do sometimes accept them to cover the small expenses.
Amit: So there are no plans for any premium membership?
Diogo: We don’t mention about it, because we don’t want to divide the community into parts with people categorized, and it would go against what we are now.
Amit: You could offer some premium membership where a few full time membership could dedicate to work with people who are of high priority?
Diogo: When a premium member pays, they would expect something. If you are a premium members pays and the problems doesn’t solve, and the developer doesn’t want to work that night as anyways he is not going to be paid for that.. it could be…
Amit: You could also share some revenue to him too making a business model..
Diogo: There are several theories about it.. when you are voluntarily doing something, and then you are paid and work, it takes things somewhere else. Sometimes things can go very fast, and developers would not be interested later on..
Amit: If at some point of time, if a developer loses interest in working on CM and is paid by a company to work on a project, you could be losing the guys working with you..
Diogo: Most of us work for fun, to help the community.. and I actually don’t know why people ask me about the funding ideas.
Amit: But when you look at Wikipedia, they keep forcing people to give donations for their site to run.. you could do something like the paid thing where you could work dedicatedly and start building some better ROMs and totally move away from the beta concepts..
Diogo: I get your point.. there can be such things done…
Amit: Because that could completely increase the faith on the whole firmware and more would start using it.
Neal: What about the support for tablet devices? We can see that there are few tablets supported by CM..
Diogo: We have an internal policy where we have a list of devices, and as of now we have worked on the Galaxy Tab 10.1, and we have lots of stuff for the tablet devices pretty soon. In the future, we could be working on the tablets when Ice Cream Sandwich is ported into them.
Neal: The CyanogenMod latest version as of now is the CM 7.1, and then you announced CM9.. which is for the Gingerbread version.. so have you kept the CM8 version for Honeycomb?
Diogo: Yes, it was just a decision for the honeycomb.. and the version 8 was the honeycomb tablets.
Amit: So you won’t be releasing any version of CM8, i.e. for honeycomb right now?
Diogo: Yes for now it won’t be coming out..
Chetan: What kind of contribution are you expecting from the non-developers like me?
Diogo: Its mostly about the languages.. sometimes it is hard for me to understand and work on the other languages, and for many it would be easy. So it would be helpful from people with local languages who could easily decide, work and submit that so that the others from same language base can get help on it…
Amit: So how do you get the count of the user base, like you have any code installed in the device that helps in counting?
Diogo: When you boot the phone once the CM is installed, there is a check box through an application, where you are asked to opt or not opt to send the data, and the default option is “opt out” of sending the data.. still many opt to send it and it goes into the count.
Amit: Do you know which are the 3 countries which have got the highest number of users?
Diogo: China, US and few others of which the exact statistical data is not there so the best two are US and China..
Amit: As you said you are in a partnership with Samsung now.. so could you share if at all you have any, news about the Samsung Galaxy S3?
Diogo: Definitely, I don’t have any idea. Its an understanding between both of us, and no paper or agreement in the name of partnership..
Amit: That’s understandable.. you help them by sending the codes and custom firmwares and they help you with the devices. So you don’t have any idea about the S3?
Diogo: Yeah I have no idea about the S3 but have about the other devices but can’t really share anything openly.
