[Android General] Entropy512:
Jeez... People can't read... Especially the person who posted this thread in the first place.

Let's first get one thing clear, something that people just don't seem to understand even though it is said over and over and over again...

The Cyanogenmod project, as a whole, does not make collective decisions regarding device support. In the history of the project, there is only one case I am aware of where the project as a whole has made a statement that certain devices would NEVER be supported for particular Android versions. That would be https://plus.google.com/117962666888533781522/posts/MRnnvs3oFUF

HOWEVER: Device support is heavily dependent on one thing: A maintainer for that particular device. Maintainers are, with the exception of the above, NOT given direction from the project as a whole what devices to work on not/work on. If a maintainer decides to support a device and is able to get it working up to Cyanogenmod standards, it will be supported. If no one steps up to support/maintain a device, it won't get supported. Cyanogenmod is and always has been a volunteer project, so device support is largely dependent on volunteers/manpower.

In the case of Samsung Exynos4 devices (Exynos3, aka Hummingbird, is the same SoC as the Nexus S, and as a result continues to receive good support. In fact when I get the time I'll be working on polishing up the Infuse support to get it officially merged, but Exynos4 has consumed all of my time lately...):

Most of the maintainer work over the past year has been done by four core maintainers, plus the guys with Sprint devices who spend most of their time beating their heads against Sprint's oddball radios.

Retired Exynos4 maintainers (no longer active, but deserving of credit):

atinm

Unhelpful

mauimauer

Current GSM Exynos4 maintainers (doing most of the platform-level work, letting others focus on device-specific oddities):

codeworkx (moving to Sony and Nexus devices, he's been at it nearly two years)

xplodwild (going Nexus, second longest activity period of the current team)

espenfjo (came onboard with I9100 ICS, about the same time as myself)

Myself

Sprint Maintainers:

chris41g

mkasick

sbrissen

Other contributors:

Steve Harper (dock audio guru)

R. Andrew Ohana (Exynos 4210 Tablets)

Alan Orth (Exynos 4210 Tablets)

Sam Mortimer

Many others

Will some of the "Other contributors" step up to be maintainers? Maybe, but not likely. What I can say is, of the above active maintainers:

codeworkx is done with Exynos-based Samsungs

xplodwild is also done with Samsungs

I am not going to feel comfortable purchasing another Samsung device for at least six months

espenfjo is not likely to get further devices either

Now, of course, as a result of this mess, Samsung made the announcement at Big Android BBQ that they would be opening up their sources. What does it actually mean? We don't know yet. However:

1) They promised they were "working hard" on the eMMC brickbug in early June. In early July, they released I9100 XXLQ5 and XWLPM, endangering a previously safe device. No affected device has yet to receive an update that renders its kernel safe, even though Samsung submitted a patch to LKML months ago

2) They still, even after all of this, don't provide documentation or other information when asked for information about some of the non-SoC-specific stuff. For example, codeworkx asked for information related to Bluetooth headset operation on the P3100 and P5100 (Tab 2 variants - which are all OMAP based) - They refused to provide any information whatsoever, even though this is a pretty basic non-proprietary thing.

3) So far, what they have pushed to the new Insignal repos is nearly identical to the outdated broken source that used to be there. There are some new things (including quite a bit of HDMI code), but it isn't useful because hwcomposer is fundamentally broken in those source drops. However, it isn't even November yet and they said they would open the repos in mid-November, so there's a possibility they will push more code. I'm going to give them some time on this one before throwing them under the bus.

So the current maintainers are exhausted and burned out. None of us will be picking up new devices, and also likely won't be maintaining our current devices beyond CM10. We're tired of fighting Samsung's brokenness to do an early bringup.

Now, there are two recent pieces of news that might change things:

1) Nexus 10 with Exynos 5250. Depending on how open-source this is, non-Nexus Exynos5 devices might be viable for CM. However the source probably won't be too useful on Exynos4.

2) The aforementioned promise to opensource Exynos4. Right now, because it's so little so late, it will at least prevent some of the current maintainers from dropping current devices out of exhaustion. It MIGHT even be enough to make us decide to take on CM11 for those devices if it's high enough quality. I have little faith that this will be the case.

Of course, there's a key unknown here: Will new maintainers pick up new devices and continue on? Maybe. There are some possible candidates working on the Note II, but for those who are making purchasing decisions specifically based on CM support, I would strongly suggest avoiding the Note II as its future is highly unknown. The new guys may succeed, or they may fail. They're all working on N7100, so US variants are not looking promising unless new maintainers pick those up. Of course, if N7100 has a solid bringup, the USA GSM+LTE variants (AT&T and T-Mobile) shouldn't be too difficult. CDMA devices (Sprint/Verizon) are always significantly more difficult to work with. I would not expect a bringup for these devices unless one of the above listed Sprint maintainers takes it on.