[XPERIA X8 General] SamsungGalaxySII.:
This is the historical account from darkfrmr (full credits to him), it is much more entertaining and educational, please please do thank him for this wonderful post.

Here @ http://xdaforums.com/showpost.php?p=24483372&postcount=12 He deserves it :D:

I don't remember exact dates but this is what i remember to have seen on this forum since january-2011 (a little research too):

- need to go back to 1.6 "donut" to get root access

- zdzihu created xrecovery based con cwm recovery for x10mini (thats what we used until cwm recovery was ported to the x8).

- racht started porting eclair AOSP roms and then htc sense roms, eclair and froyo, part of HACKDROID rom series.

- racht started porting early versions of CM7, part of HACKDROID rom series.

- Jerpelea, now known as FXP, started freexperia development in x8, bringing CM7 with libs from sources.

- somewhere in time it became posible to root 2.1 eclair, and custom roms were pre-rooted.

- JIT appeared for stock 2.1.

- "Bootloader unlock" development started (it took months to achieve...)

- Doixanh (later known as "module man" lol) surprised everyone extending capabilities of stock kernel by using kernel modules, synaptic gesture (at this moment it was unknown that there were 2 version of x8 with different digitizers), overclock, undervolt and also he fixed mddi lags.

- somewhere in time (lol) ponanovn ported nobodyAtall's minicm6 for x10mini (froyo) and it became the first really stable rom because it has fixed some issues with random reboots and "super user" apps making device to reboot.

- SU apps reboot fix was ported to almost every rom like hackdroid floyo and gingerbread roms. Froyo roms were pretty good and almost perfect for day to day use. Gingerbread roms lacked camera and fm radio, and there was battery issues with them.

- Doixanh started his new project "FroyoBread", froyo with "good looking" features from gingerbread like crt screen on/off animation and edge glow and it was created from clean sources. This became the greatest froyo release, even today there is people using last version of it. FYI latest versions of hackdroid floyo were based on froyobread.

- ponanovn ported x10mini minicm7 from nobodyAtall (in this point gingerbread roms had vga camera only, from jerpelea freexperia sources)

- kuyagaol created a new CM7 rom, kuyadroid, based on htc legend nightly's, it combines hackdroid cm7 and minicm7 to fix fm radio and bring vga cam.

- AnDyX appeared on the scene and brought us new modules, including real dual touch for x8's with cypress digitizers, force disabling automatic brightness, netfilter and smartass governor.

- Final version of froyobread released, doixanh started a new project called "GingerDX", froyobread exclusive features in a CM7 htc hero (CM7 nightly's) based rom. GingerDX was the first gingerbread rom with fully working camera (the trick was later ported to every cm7 rom). With GingerDX release appeared a lot of "new developers" or soft modders (rom cookers) who created modded versions of gingerdx (even to this day), adding features like bravia engine and xloud (fakes), but mostly changing framework and tweaking it.

- racht silently quit development with his last port of an htc sense rom.

- With a nearly completed cm7 rom from sources jerpelea, now FXP, left x8 development, but now some components libs can be built from sources like wifi, making easier to port to another android version.

- x8 development was almost ending, rom updates were each time less frequent but suddenly the forum member "the_laser" achieved one of the least possible things, x8 bootloader can be unlocked now!, this revived development and custom kernels began to appear, all of them based on FXP kernel sources (FXP was silenty making that).

- first custom kernel: LinuxDX by doixanh, improving perfomance and moving modules to the place where them should be, in kernel. (discontinued).

- new custom kernel from "alfsamsung", Alfs Kernel for GingerDX showing us the real potential of x8, great performance improvements. (with frequent updates is used by a lot of users today).

- nobodyAtall started x8 development with miniCM7 and nAa kernel series combining stability and good performance, with most of the core component built from sources (FXP's way). A lot of kernel components were ported from newer versions of it. New features in this combo like native wifi tethering. Very popular rom like GingerDX.

- Bad news for some users, devices manufactured past week 29 on 2011 can get hardbricked if they try to unlock bootloader, forcing them to stick to stock kernel.

- Achotjan bring us Sony Ericsson Debrand Engine, and we have a taste of what it would be an official gingerbread update from SE.

- First tastes of AOSP Ice Cream Sandwich ICS began to appear, stock and custom kernel, pretty buggy and not for daily use.

- paul-xxx started developing CM9, only for nAa kernel. Few bugs with wifi and camera and HW acceleration not working.

- doixanh is not longer available to support GingerDX, B.Jay and eagleeyetom continues "the fun".

- nobodyAtall, with new libs from qualcomm created miniCM9, almost fully working ICS rom with HW acceleration, some issues and not working camera. For this a new kernel showed up, nAa ICS kernel based on nAa kernel. Due to this paul-xxx quit developing.

- what will happen next??

ps: yeah... I have a lot of free time today