[bobbyd3]

Many custom ROM's are/were based on the CyanogenMod source code. Without CyanogenMod/lineageos, custom ROM chef's would need to rely exclusively on AOSP [1] source code instead.

Certain custom ROM's such as ParanoidAndroid [2] used AOSP as a base prior to CyanogenMod getting shutdown so these ROM's would not be impacted.

The nice thing about CyanogenMod was the wide variety of devices they supported. This meant you could get a newer version of Android/CM on what would have been an otherwise unsupported device by the OEM/Wireless Carrier. CyanogenMod was generally the model project for other third-party custom ROM's.

[1] http://source.android.com/source/index.html [2] http://www.paranoidandroid.co/