Lead Developer of Xperia Open Source Project (XOSP) Will Cease Development

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The lead developer for XOSP, XDA Recognized Developer nilac considered, had starting work on XOSP based on Android O earlier this month. However, due to certain major concerns the developer had, he made the decision to stop any development garnered towards XOSP.

XOSPApps

The XOSPApps package can easily be installed on any device regardless of the ROM the device is running. Considering this, the developer stated that XOSP wouldn’t bring anything “new” and ” unique” to the table when such package already provided a significant chunk of the experience.

Xperia UI

The developer is under the impression that the experience a user has while using and browsing through the applications while running XOSP can easily be re-created onto other devices with the help of tools like substratum. The lead developer had always been reluctant when questions regarding a lack of substratum’s integration into the ROM had to be answered. Spending a fair amount of time individually theming most of the XOSPApps, the reluctance was but natural.

The users

Calin Neamtu states that many users aren’t as happy with XOSP as they once were, due to the fact that they now have options to have ROMs supporting themes to a much greater extent. The developer states that the users regard the Xperia experience, the UI and the exclusive package of the applications as nothing extraordinary. The lead developer quite recently published a statement onto the official Telegram channel for XOSP, which you can find below.

Full Statement

“4 Years Ago a ROM was born and that was the S+ Reborn, it was only built for the Samsung Galaxy S+ at that time but it gained a very good success and [was] afterwards ported on other devices as well.

It was that time when XOSP was born. The aim of the ROM was to [achieve] a very close Xperia feeling to the Original one by including UI elements and the most famous Xperia Apps.

I don’t know if anyone of you tried porting an Xperia app in the years when we were in the Jelly Bean era but it was much more difficult to get it work on a different phone than an Xperia one.

By now almost everyone is able with some tricks to make them work cause eventually what you need are just some frameworks and the relative XML permissions.

Users nowadays are looking [for] much more in ROMs, having themes support and as many features as possible and unfortunately that’s where also some developers from other ROMs are doing wrong.

You don’t need to pump the ROM with as many features as possible if they’re not needed. And never listen to the users because the users will only want what another ROM has and that’s just makes your ROM the same as an another one.

Don’t make the terrible mistake to create a ROM and then maintaining it by only picking stuff what the other ROMs got, just pick [a new feature] essentially if you need something but never too much.

XOSP fulfilled all the primary goals and even mine as well, and I will never be sad of thinking to the past of this awesome project which gave so much satisfaction to the users and great reviews.

This also gave me a certain popularity among the other great and much talented Developers, plus all the Android stuff that I learned by working on this ROM.

So with very much disappointing and pain, XOSP will never get the Android O.

I’ve been thinking on this very much, some of you may be knowing that I was looking for developers to join the team but that didn’t go so well, but apart that there’s also the whole thing about the [userbase] and what Sony is also doing because in the last years I don’t know why but Sony appears to be decided to continue on a more and more AOSPish interface leaving XOSP with pretty much a simple UI which can be archived with a simple Substratum theme.

XOSP brought up a very different style in comparison to many ROMs but not just by the UI but also by the way of doing things.

Maybe I wasn’t luck enough to find some more people for the development but this time I think the users decided to go with the other ROMs.

For all those who are sad or maybe disappointed by this decision don’t even think that I am fine with this cause I am not.

I’ll continue to work on my own just not on XOSP and maybe I’ll find a new home if someone needs a dedicated person in the team.

I really doubt someone will ever continue something on XOSP cause if I didn’t find enough people to give a hand with the development it’s highly improbable that someone will continue from state where I’ll leave the ROM in September cause support for Nougat will be continued until September, after that no more builds will be done.

Sorry guys but I just feel this is the right way to end this, I kept the development [alive] as much as I could but this cannot be maintained anymore.” — Nilac

Have you ever tried XOSP? Let us know about your experience in the comments.