Cyanogen’s Steve Kondik responds to OnePlus statements

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Just on two days ago we published a piece on the continuing OnePlus saga, referencing what we termed “The Cyanogen Love Triangle” regarding Cyanogen Inc’s exclusivity deal with Micromax in India and how it affected OnePlus.

India was not originally on the list of release countries for the OnePlus One, and was only added in recent weeks as the company detailed its plans to move into the market. Now that the OnePlus One will be sold there, the software the runs the device is in limbo – it cannot receive any official support from Cyanogen Inc due to their deal with Micromax. OnePlus took to their blog and publicly had a crack at Cyanogen Inc for this deal.

Today, after reading a thread on the OnePlus forums, Steve Kondik, aka Cyanogen, has fired back at comments made by OnePlus. While he neglected to comment on the India/Micromax situation, he did respond to the text a OnePlus’ “Software Support FAQs” thread posted in the India section of their forums by “Vikas”, noted as an Administrator on the forum. The FAQ text claimed that features like ClearImage (the camera feature which stitches 10 images together for a high resolution image) are their own, and were not developed by Cyanogen.

The original text:

2. Do you include all the CyanogenMod features on your own rom including gestures, tap to wake, themes, tweaks etc?
These are OnePlus features (including ClearImage), they have not been developed by Cyanogen.

This prompted Steve’s rather disappointed post:

For those new to the custom ROM scene, The K Word to which Steve is referring is “kang”. It means the process of stealing code and claiming it as your own. Someone who “kangs” is a “kanger” (and some were Kings at it).

OnePlus has since gone edited the post in the forums, although it’s not been noted that is has been edited. The new entry states:

2. Do you include all the CyanogenMod features on your own rom including gestures, tap to wake, themes, tweaks etc?
Gestures, tap-to-wake, ClearImage and some other tweaks are exclusive OnePlus features. They have been developed by third-party companies and implemented on the One by Cyanogen.
Themes, privacy/security tweaks, and everything else that you can find in the nightlies, has been developed by Cyanogen.

Interestingly, they seem to be forgetting that some of the “exclusive OnePlus features” have in fact been developed by Cyanogen, including ClearImage. Who the feature belongs to is not up to me, but more likely an IP lawyer. Ausdroid’s sources have told me that Cyanogen Inc did develop the feature, although as they were contracting for OnePlus at the time that feature may well be owned by OnePlus. It could all come down to the specifics of the contract.

In the past, when it came to developers “kanging” work from someone else all it took to make it right was recognition of where it came from. Usually that was enough to appease the open source community, including CyanogenMod developers. For OnePlus to claim they developed features that Cyanogen Inc have is a slap in the face.

Steve has since closed the comments on his Google+ post, ending with this statement:

I’m gonna disable comments here since I fear it will escalate quickly. I despise the fact that it was played out in public like this. Regardless of what goes down business-wise, we’re committed to our users. The One is a great device, I’m using mine right now, and we’ll still have updates and CM12 nightlies shortly.

Steve’s closed comments on his thread, but we haven’t. What do you make of these new developments? Tell us in the comments – but please be respectful to both sides.