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by themstheones
4650 days ago
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Right now GApps, which includes things like Play Store, Chromium, Calendar, GMail, etc., doesn't ship with cyanogen because some of the apps are closed source. You can install it separately after the install if desired, and for most folks I assume it makes that phone a lot more useful. I wonder if cyanogen started to make enough inroads on android's market share if Google would try to make it more difficult to install GApps. |
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Cyanogenmod thrives based on a couple of very grey legal areas:
- first, as you mention, the ability to install the "Google Apps" binaries, which include basic functionality (Play Store, google service apps, etc). If Cyanogenmod is viewed as any sort of threat, Google can immediately crack down on this distribution. CM could still be useful without Google services, but it would be decidedly less useful.
- second, the ability to acquire and redistribute proprietary binaries which ship with devices and make them actually work. A majority of CM-running devices rely on binary blobs extracted from the vendor's software for hardware support; CM rips them from the factory install and redistributes them.
So CM in its present form is dependent on 1) Google's good graces in allowing gapps to be redistributed and 2) manufacturers looking the other way on the redistribution of their proprietary blobs.
The only conclusion I can come to is that CM must position itself as a non-threat to the business models of both manufacturers and Google. That will be an interesting tightrope to walk.