[Galaxy S 4 i9505 Original Android Development] harakternyk:
[MENTION=5968293]side[/MENTION], first and foremost I'd really like to thank you for your work on the S4. I've been a silent reader for months but due to recent events, I decided to take register to first, express my gratitude and respect for you and [MENTION=1711160]Buff99[/MENTION], and secondly, sincerely ask you to clarify what has happened.

Let me recollect the facts, from my understanding:

- You and Buff99 were working in publicly reachable Github repos attribued to JDCTeam and Buff99.

- Someone (1:n people) stole ("kanged") your Oreo contribution and sold it as his own build.

- Looking around the threads here and occasionally having followed the commits on Github entitled "F... Ripee #3 of 99" I conclude, the thing you are now pissed off is a release of "LOS 15.1" by ripee: https://xdaforums.com/galaxy-s4/i9505-develop/rom-lineageos-15-1-t3816279

- Obviously, ripee neither credited you, nor by any words made clear that this is not his work but just the compilation of sources he stole from everywhere. In fact, if you look through ripee's posts, through the lines you read that he doesn't even have an S4 (and probably other devices he is providing builds for as well).

Is my understanding correct or am I missing something?

Since in your last post, you referred to the community for kicking stealers, I really wonder how we could achieve that. Contacting ripee and asking him to stop stealing your and Buff99's work? Flaming his thread and making others aware that there's a guy desperately seeking for attention and credit for other's people work? Reporting it somewhere / somehow?

Sorry if this sounds naive. I believe I've read and followed all details expressed here and in the OptLos thread. However, I'm unsure how the community should contribute positively if you don't put the cards onto the table but just say that you're mad and that's it. Please don't get me wrong. I really, really appreciate your work for this device and acknowledge that without you, it would have already been dead for a long time.

Some more thoughts:

- Stealers, such as ripee, are unable to provide something new, so they try to fill a gap. In that case, as far as I can say, there was no LOS 15.1 without experimental enhancements from JDCTeam. Wouldn't it be an option to just provide your changes upstream to LOS and get the credit where it's due?

- Plagiarism, missing IPR attribution, and code stealing occurs in all domains. Not only with Android / LOS but any domain. I think it's beyond discussion that selling other people's work as your own is disrespectful and mentally very weak. Isn't there still a way to stand above that? I guess you did your builds for a community where 99% knew anyway that you and Buff99 knew are the real sources and drivers behind that. Probably a bad comparison but expect for those who constantly look at the LOS Gerrit tracker, nobody sees the countless contributions by highly talented people who apparently don't get individual credits at all.

- Closed-source would prevent stealing but make it harder to keep the whole thing alive as soon as the main dev quits. This can be seen, e.g. with S3 Mini and New Maclaw's version which receives no more updates. Others, couldn't even build upon that as they would have to reimplement everything and lift the Android version one by one.

- I don't know much about being a release maintainer but wouldn't that be another viable option to show that you are behind S4?

- To be honest, I was always reluctant to install a custom build from JDCTeam since I am aware that development may stop from one moment to the other, leaving me without security updates. Basically just as now. The experimental character in addition, e.g. a changed gps.conf from one version to another, and the need to reinstall all the time, makes it almost impossible to use as a daily driver. Having an official LOS version would provide security updates and nightlys "automatically". Further "refining" on the device tree can still be done but is likely not necessary to that extent as when a new Android version is released.

Once again, I have the biggest respect for your work and sincerly appreciate since I can profit from it on a daily basis. I'm pretty sure, this applies to the majority of users in this thread. Thus, I kindly request you to clarify what happened, what can be done to look ahead in a positive manner and how to prevent such situations from happening again.

Sorry for this very long posting. Still, it was my wish to write it as clear as possible. I'm looking forward to your reply.