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If you are stuck with a phone for which the manufacturer has stopped releasing updates, or if you are bored with your current Android version and want to try something new, or if you want to be on the latest Android security patches, or if you want to make use to theming engines such as Substratum (which may not work with your phone's default OS), or if you are just a hobbyist looking for something fresh…custom android roms provide you with the perfect solution for your needs. Made by developers and enthusiasts, custom roms illustrate the power of diversity that can come from an open source ecosystem.

In theory, at least.

Below is my commentary on my trysts with custom roms over the last year and half.

Disclaimer

: My experiences are based mostly on three phones - Moto G4, Redmi Note 3 (kenzo, not kate), and OnePlus 3.

The Trouble with custom Roms

1.	Barriers to Entry

Before you can even venture into the world of installing and trying out new roms, you must ensure that your phone is, in fact, ready for it. This requires steps like getting the bootloader unlocked (can be tricky with phones like Xiaomi etc.), installing custom recovery, and then flashing roms, and then flashing GApps. For most users, this is too much hassle that they can be bothered with. There is a significantly steep learning curve for the layperson.

Thereafter, you must see which ROMs are available for your phone, which are still in active development, which have less bugs etc. This requires a lot of time going through the forums. Otherwise, you will waste more time flashing and then reflashing continuously.

Which brings us to the second point.

2.	Official, Unofficial, MOD….Abandoned!

So, you found your way around XDA forums…good job! Now, you must start figuring out the differences between Official and Unofficial roms, and what that implies. The situation gets even more complex, because often we assume that Official tag would imply active development and bugfixes, and security updates, and the like. However, there are many "Official" roms that are dead, but "unofficial" roms that are alive, with more bugfixes, and a wider community.

One example is Citrus-CAF for Kenzo Official, which is dead…but Customized LOS build by Umang, which is unofficial, which is going well.

So after a while, the user realizes that whether there is an Official tag or Unofficial tag, really doesn't matter for all practical purposes, and is quite frankly just confusing. So why even bother with the tags? Official builds are equally likely to be abandoned by the developers without any prior notice, as are unofficial builds. Which takes us to the next issue.

3.	Abandoned!

Remember, why you hopped on to the custom roms scene in the first place? That your manufacturer has abandoned your device and you wanted something new and more up to date? Well, guess what?! Custom rom developers abandon their roms all the time, without any warning whatsoever, and you are stuck waiting for the next build, which never comes.

This is hidden under the courteous pretenses of asinine etiquettes such as… "Don't ask for ETAs..the developers have a life you know, they are doing this for free, so just wait."

Here is my gripe with this all-pervasive norm. The developers knew they have a life, and yet decided to commit to a project, and attracted other people to their roms. And people put their trust in the developer (phones have all our data, so allowing a random person's code willingly on our phones is an act of utmost good faith), reported bugs, went through the trouble of the learning curve. Some even donated to the projects. If you start a pet project in your backyard, which no one else is affected by, then by all means go ahead and abandon it whenever you like. But when you are making OSes, then have some accountability. Especially the Official tag ones.

So many developers are just computer science students who have exams and what not, and so although the title of the ROM thread might claim weekly updates, they are gone for a month (Eg. Resurrection Remix for Redmi Note 3). This gives the whole rom an amateurish feel, and often a user might decide to stick with the OEM because of a lack of confidence in such roms.

And what is so wrong with asking for ETAs? It requires the developer to make a commitment which they may not be in a position to honor. That's the problem. Which leads me to the next point.

4.	Communication

There are some developers who are really good at communication and keeping their user base updated on what's happening behind the scenes. However, this is still a rarity. I wish more developers did that. Some start new threads, promise you the best experience there ever was in the history of humanity, stay online for a month, and then vanish without a trace…(Eg. dotOS).

I wish there were more developers like xyyx, and Franco who communicate, even when they are not uploading builds. It instills confidence.

5.	Accountability

I recently directed a friend of mine to go to one of the many rom threads available for his phone, the OnePlus 5. He spent one night browsing the forums, and decided he did not want to install anything. I asked why, and he said, "All this is fine, but I cannot get past, the initial disclaimer itself. When a manufacturer messes up an update and bricks your phone, they are held accountable. It is their legal responsibility. But here, every single rom starts with … you are on your own, if I release an update which breaks your phone, then too bad, go cry somewhere else. I cannot abide by that."

And this got me thinking…for those of us, who are not so tech savvy, custom roms are indeed a scary proposition. Can we do something about it, to ensure a little bit more accountability and quality checks for Official roms at least?

6.	Userbase/ Community

While the general populace here at XDA is extremely helpful, I have found that this forum is divided into sub-communities of varying degrees of niceness. The stark difference can be found in the sub-communities of Oneplus 3 custom rom versus that of Redmi Note 3. While the former group seems more mature and accepting of mistakes newcomers might make, that of the latter, is less forgiving.

Please take a look at the below just some of the thousands of examples of such conversations live on the forums.

Once you are done wondering about the relevance of an inquiry on your sexual orientation by a homophobic imbecile, on a custom rom forum, you find yourself guided by experts like this...

But the most common, useful advice of them all, repeated many times on custom rom forums is this....

Now I know the moderators clean the threads at regular intervals, but think from the perspective of that new user, a potential fellow enthusiast, who perhaps could have ventured into the custom rom scene and helped in various ways…think from that person's point of view….would they ever return to that rom? Every three pages of any rom, you will find such comments.

And this is a huge problem, I feel. Custom roms thrive on the community around them, much like Linux distributions. Developers and moderators must take more steps to ensure a more harmonious and cordial interaction on their forums.

Conclusion

Here are my takeaways from this journey so far

Installing custom roms is difficult, and a pain. With locked bootloaders, custom recoveries, Error 7, etc etc. There is very little a developer can do about this.

Currently, there seems to be no difference between Official and Unofficial roms from a user's perspective, so the tags are meaningless and confusing. That Official tag will start to mean something, only if there are more stringent conditions on quality, accountability, communication, and expectation of support and development. Otherwise, it is useless.

The community needs to be better moderated than it is, currently. Trolls are a fact of modern life, I know. But perhaps, we as a community can also moderate and shut down any such conversations, and help each other, better than we are doing.

Overall, I think, rather than depending solely on the developers and maintainers of a custom rom, I think it is upon us, the community, as a whole to make this ecosystem better for users and developers, enthusiasts and hobbyists, geeks and layperson, alike.