[EVO 4G Android Development] flexgrip:
Thank you. That is a very logical response, and I agree with almost everything you said. You are correct in saying I didn't offer "much" of a response. Partly because package based development has been figured out for a long time so I think most people know what I was referring to. I am guessing a lot of the offended don't. But I'm not one of those guys that looks at non-programmers as idiots... Believe me I know the type.

To be honest, I think a lot of the, lets call them unfortunate, decisions in the development cycle of these roms stems from windows. A lot of the developers I've talked to are stuck on it, and really have a hard time moving from windows. Even though a lot of their toolchain is better, faster, and more suited to linux, they just can't get off that bandwagon. So all of a sudden they are thinking to themselves "Wait, I have to download this git client, configure my vc server, then find a plugin for my editor..." and on and on. It does make me a little bit skeptical as to their talents at times. And why wouldn't it? I mean look at cyanogen. I realize there were a group of people that kind of mauled CM7 (I've never been an AOSP guy). But seriously when he was the meat and potatoes behind CM, that thing was tight as a drum. No response on the forums, only took requests and bugs through issue trackers, managed branches properly, and took patches upstream like a dream.

Thats what I am eluding to here. You are right, there are a ton of roms. I call them themes because they really are a base rom + theme that looks like it came right out of "Hot Topic" and they belong in the theme section of this forum... Dragons and what not. Then they make up rules for release dates and version numbers. Prioritize dragonball-z wallpapers over apps force-closing. I realize they can do whatever they want. And thats partly why I roll my own rom mostly.

I kept pestering virus on a few different threads with comments like "Hey I love this rom, but I want to fix this. Can you put this thing on github so I can submit patches?". He told me on irc that it sounded like a good idea, but then along came synergy. And it was a group of dudes that I thought were going to make the ultimate rom by good practices and open development. I will say this is better than anything else I've used. But forum posts are not a place to post update.zips of fixes/patches. And with no clear milestones it just seems a bit off to me. Our devices are not that much different, and everyone I know that has used these latest releases think they are less stable than before. Maybe it's just us, but I don't believe that. Someone earlier said they do in fact have milestones. But their repositories say otherwise. I am sure they have personal task lists, and things they are working towards. I just wish it was more of an open process I guess.

Ultimately you are correct. They can decide to do whatever they want. And maybe their style of development fits their routine better. Just figured I would say something in hopes that maybe it would catch on. But absolutely... its not my decision to make. But from my perspective I don't mean to anger the glee club by suggesting synergy isn't perfect because of a fundamental reason.