Steve Kondik has left a statement about the rather troubling news coming out of Cyanogen Inc. this week on the [private] official CyanogenMod developer Google+ community, and things aren't looking pretty. While Kondik doesn't say outright that he's leaving "the Inc," it's pretty strongly implied that he wants nothing to do with the company anymore. The problem is that while Kondik wants out and to move on with the CyanogenMod project, there could be significant legal hurdles in fully detangling the open source community project from the for-profit venture.

Kondik also essentially confirms what many had thought for years: the Inc. was badly mismanaged, the executive leadership frequently disagreed, and Kirt McMaster's moronic comments about putting bullets through heads were an unending source of headaches and embarrassment for all. Kondik doesn't mince words, and openly blames McMaster for the company's numerous false starts, media snafus, and confusing business model:

My co-founder [McMaster] apparently became unhappy with running the business and not owning the vision. This is when the "bullet to the head" and other misguided media nonsense started, and the bad business deals were signed. Being second in command, all I could do was try and stop it, do damage control, and hope every day that something new didn't happen. The worst of it happened internally and it became a generally shitty place to work because of all the conflict. I think the backlash from those initial missteps convinced him that what we had needed to be destroyed.

I think it's pretty clear where Kondik believes the problem with Cyanogen Inc. was centered, and while I am not privy to this larger history in the way Kondik is, I'm inclined to agree that McMaster has always seemed grossly incompetent in his role. Of course, Kondik is likely to avoid emphasizing any of the poor decisions he made (like bringing McMaster on in the first place) in a post that essentially seeks to damn the whole company for burning him, but hey: I can see where he's coming from. The feelings are clearly still raw, and Kondik does place some of the blame at his own feet:

With plenty of cash in the bank, the new guys tore the place down and will go and do whatever they are going to do. It's probably for the best and I wish them luck, but what I was trying to do, is over. Boo hoo, right? I fucked up and got fucked over. It's the Silicon Valley way isn't it? First world problems in the extreme? It hurts, a lot. I lost a lot of friends, and I'm truely [sic] sorry to everyone I let down. I wish I had made different choices and trusted different people (especially one in particularly early on), but all I care about now is figuring out what to do next.

What's next, apparently, is the question of reenergizing and reorganizing the CyanogenMod community effort. The problem with that is that Cyanogen Inc. has control over some of the brand and trademarks around Cyanogen and CyanogenMod, and so the whole thing will likely have to be forked and rebranded, at least according to Kondik.

Kondik has suggested in the comments of the post that he may attempt to crowdfund a relaunch of the ROM and structure a new company around the effort as a 501.3c - a non-profit organization. Of course, this is just spit-balling among some community organizers, and does not represent an official plan going forward.