[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S III] dg4prez:
Well this is an interesting thread.

I'm the team liquid communications guy. Here's what I can tell you about what we do. Bear in mind, I'm not a dev - I'm here specifically to handle releases, etc.

The team is made up of a few core devs. Liquid0624, nocoast, and winner00. Occasionally hiemanshu as well but lately I think he's travelling. By far Liquid0624 makes up the core of what this rom is.

We were based on CM briefly for 4.1.2, but are back to AOSP. We didn't care for the CM base. Here's what we do - we take the AOSP code, and optimize the hell out of it. Our roms are ~100mb. We then start to add in features. We tend to go for the same popular features everyone else likes. Generally more than CM, but not so jammed with features as AOKP can be. Sometimes too much of a good thing is too much.

Credit is always given. If we miss it, it's an oversight. Given I'm not really a dev, I can see that happening and I shall endeavor to ensure that better care is taken for such things. I absolutely agree that such things deserve credit, always.

Do we need donations? You bet. We're a tiny little team, and Liquid0624 does this as his job. He works at least 12 hours a day on this, and is often pestering me at all hours of the night about new releases, etc. This is his life. So yeah, we need donations. Without them Liquid (whose name is Ryan, by the way) can't afford to keep doing this, and that means the rom dies. I'm doing this for free simply because I saw a need for a dedicated communications guy and wanted to keep that from happening. I know there's a rep. I understand why. I even agree that in the past things were stated in such a way as to make it seem like this was a pay-for-play operation. That's why I joined the team - I knew how it was on the inside and I saw the perceptions, and they didn't match.

That's the thing, really. This is not a pay-for-play operation. Literally the second a release is completed, I'm getting pings from Ryan. He doesn't like to hold onto things. I wish he would sometimes, and have actually started a group that helps to address that - more on that later. But there is no release we've ever held onto or not released to the public. Ever. Never, ever, ever. This is an open source based rom, and our code is freely available, our builds are freely available - always will be.

I'm always working on ways to make things even better. We created a "producers" group for folks who donate a certain amount. These folks get slightly better access to our devs via a google groups community - mostly chitchat back and forth. I've taken to posting builds there a little (couple hours) sooner, just to get some early testing done, but I think I've done that a total of twice. Most of the time Ryan is hot to get things out the door and into your hands. It's a way of us to say thanks to our supporters. We also are working on other ways to do so as well, because without our supporters we wouldn't exist. One of these days we'd like to have a paid app of some kind so folks can donate that way as well if they want. Maybe we will.

So that's the deal. We're in a place that all devs are in who can't afford to do this for free. We're passionate about android, we want to bring you the best rom possible - this is our daily driver too - but we need to literally keep the lights on and keep Ryan's family fed. So we need to ask for donations constantly. Would we rather not? You bet. But it is what it is, and it's a line we walk. Believe me when I say that no one is making retirement money, here. I have a family myself, and sometimes I think Ryan might be insane. There's zero doubt that he's passionate about this stuff, or he wouldn't be doing it.

But 1ManWolfePack, I'm going to argue to the end that we're a team of thieves. We work with other devs, we contribute code, we use code and credit it - just like the rest of the dev community. If you want to converse more about this privately, I'm more than willing. I will always take suggestions. It's a difficult line to walk - we think we've got something great, and want to give it to the world - but we do need to get something for the amazing amounts of time we spend, or we physically can't do it anymore.

Derek

Team Liquid