Cyanogen is in the middle of a major layoff, announced Android Police on their official blog. It is said that the layoff will affect the open source arm the most.
It was also known that employees were called into meetings, and they were told that it was their last day on the company, some cases included a group of employees.
Steve Kondik, co-founder, and CTO of Cyanogen was said to be conducting Cyanogen’s layoff. Android Police also informed that about 30 out of the 136 Cyanogen employees were fired, that’s about 20% of the workforce.
It remains unknown if more people are going to be laid off in the upcoming days or the reason why they were let go.
“We have been told by several sources that the company plans to undergo some sort of major strategic shift, with one claiming that this involves a “pivot” to “apps.” It’s not clear what such a pivot would entail,” wrote Android Police on their official blog.
These Layoffs came with no further notice. Two days ago some other employees were told not to show up for work yesterday. Those who did go to work had a general human resources meeting that was arranged the night before on their calendars, all those employees, were also let go.
Cyanogen might be wanting to redirect their attention to Apps instead of working on their CyanogenMod. The CyanogenMod, is an open source operative system for smartphones and tablet, the developers based it on the official releases of Android by Google.
CyanogenMod also offers options not featured in official firmware distributed by vendors. Their features include FLAC audio support, an OpenVPN system, CPU overclocking, Theming support, root access and an unlockable bootloader, and even features some enhancement for wi-fi, Bluetooth, and GPS options. As it is an open-source firmware the developers have stated that the software does not use any bloatware or spyware.
The project was announced by Steve Kondik in 2013, as a commercial enterprise dedicated to developing the firmware.
Kondik’s announced was heavily criticized by several developers who that stressed that rights and licensing issues, as well as honoring, acknowledging and compensating past developers are not addressed adequately.
The third party firmware such as CyanogenMod was not supported by conventional electronic devices back in the day when they came out, as the manufacturers revealed their preoccupation about unofficial software and how they might affect the device.
Some time later a statement by the U.S. Library of Congress permitted “jailbreaking” mobile devices, and some third-party software grew in popularity. Some manufacturers and even people softened their position towards this firmware like Cyanogen
On related information, Cyanogen OS 13.1 was released last June for some suitable devices, starting with some models like the OnePlus One, this update brings support for the new mobile platform introduced by Cyanogen back in February.
The latest Mod by Cyanogen is meant to enable deep integration of apps and services while using Android. This program is open to developers and hardware manufacturers who want to mod their devices.
Source: Geek Wire