While it's not exactly an apples to apples comparison, it seems fair to argue that Google's current domination of the mobile space closely mirrors last century's desktop software behemoth, Microsoft. Even today, the two companies enjoy strikingly similar adoption rates for their respective platforms: according to IDC, over 84% of smartphones shipped in the third quarter of last year were powered by Android (though Apple has made some inroads since then thanks to the popularity of its iPhone 6 lineup), while StatCounter reports that about 88% of personal computers shipped in the fourth quarter of 2014 ran Windows.

Speaking of Apple, another similarity between the two firms is, of course, their rivalry with Cupertino, which competes deftly in both mobile and traditional desktop computing — in fact, its OS X happens to be more popular than Google's Chrome OS, while its iOS makes Windows Phone's market share look like a rounding error.

Finally, like Microsoft, Google — whose unofficial slogan is "Don't Be Evil" — has come under fire (along with regulatory scrutiny, especially in Europe) for wielding its near-monopoly power to extract concessions from its partners, most famously its insistence that its licensees include the suite of Google Mobile Services in their commercial offerings.

This software bundle, which includes the Play Store, its associated apps, and the Google Search infrastructure, is key to the corporation's monetization of Android. Although it also contributes its code to the Android Open Source Project, Android builds created through that channel aren't privy to this proprietary suite of applications. This is how Google is able to maintain a good deal of control over what is widely perceived to be an open platform, in no small part due to the popularity of its many services (Gmail, YouTube, Google Maps, etc).

Ironically, one particularly outspoken critic of Google's management of Android is Cyanogen Inc., a company that was formed to commercialize a third-party ROM, CyanogenMod, which is based on Android, including the proprietary Google Mobile Services. Cyanogen claims that its firmware has been installed 12 million times, making it by far the most popular homebrewed flavor of Android.

Considering how much Android has benefited the Cyanogen developers, one might think the company would owe Google a debt of gratitude; without Android, there is no CM. However, not only has Cyanogen publicly railed against the platform's licensing terms, its CEO, Kirt McMaster, actually began a recent speech (at The Information's "Next Phase of Android" event) by stating that "we’re attempting to take Android away from Google."

McMaster went on to say that Cyanogen was working on creating an ecosystem of software and services that would obviate the need for Google's GMS bundle, including such lofty components as its own app store, along with what would presumably be an email client, mapping software, cloud storage, an online document-editing suite, and substitutions for numerous other Google offerings that Mountain View has spent nearly two decades, and billions of dollars, developing.

A brief history of forking

While other companies have forked Android before, only two have come close to providing the end user with equivalents for most of Google's many services: Amazon, with its Fire OS, and the manufacturer-formerly-known-as-Nokia (with its now-discontinued Nokia X phones), with the help of its current parent, none other than Microsoft. Both of these players possess the resources that go hand-in-hand with billion-dollar market capitalizations, and while Cyanogen is reportedly in the midst of a Series C round of funding that would value it in the hundreds of millions of dollars, it has few revenue streams, nor has it explicitly articulated a clear vision regarding its planned road to profitability.

What the public has seen of Cyanogen so far, besides its regularly updated ROM (now in version 12), may have left some observers with a bad taste in their mouths. The company's first commercially available product shipped thanks to a partnership with Chinese manufacturer OnePlus, a startup almost fully backed by established Chinese handset manufacturer Oppo. OnePlus began life with a single, hard-to-buy model known simply as the One, and for several months these devices were sold running a custom-built version of CyanogenMod.

The OnePlus One is one of the few phones to ship preloaded with CyanogenMod, a variant of Android. Image: Mashable, Sarah Fisher

However, when OnePlus made it known that it was expanding its retail sales beyond its domestic borders, to India, Cyanogen had a nasty surprise for it: McMaster and company had secretly inked a deal with leading Indian manufacturer Micromax, and the agreement included an exclusivity clause which forbade other actors from selling Cyanogen-powered phones in the country. The betrayal forced young OnePlus to go to court in order to fight an injunction on sales of its device (it eventually won), and hurriedly develop its own custom Android build, OxygenOS, to replace CyanogenMod on future products.

From its very founding, Cyanogen has seen its share of controversy. CyanogenMod has historically been a community-developed project, with literally thousands of contributors to its code. Some of those developers felt left out in the cold when a small cabal of top devs surreptitiously formed the venture-backed commercial entity, but declined to establish a profit-sharing arrangement for many of the major contributors whose work was integral to the platform.

To some, the leaders of the organization were living up to their self-adopted callsign: "Team Douche." And when it leaked out that Cyanogen had turned down a seemingly unlikely buyout offer from none other than Google itself, the billion-dollar valuation attached to that rumor (first reported in The Information) lead some to question who had started it in the first place.

Android's coming civil war

Now Cyanogen has, by virtue of McMaster's statements, drawn a line in the sand between itself and its original benefactor; indeed, he minced few words by claiming that "we will not be based on some derivative of Google in three to five years. There will be services that are doing the same old bullshit with Android, and then there will be something different."

What's up in the air is how different Cyanogen's Android will actually be from Google's Android: Despite the fact that McMaster claimed that his team was "making a version of Android that is more open," neither of these companies is in the business of performing charity. Cyanogen's investors — rumored to soon include Microsoft itself — want to see a return on their investment, and for that to happen, Cyanogen needs to make money off its software. And as Google discovered, and Apple already knew, open software is hard to make a buck on; as the primary developer, you need to retain some control over your code if you expect other entities to pay for usage.

There's little doubt that Cyanogen has the technical chops to pull off its intended goal; but if they build it, will people come? In order to successfully break away from Google, the company needs to court two groups of people: developers and consumers. Like Apple, Google could easily dictate that users of its SDK publish their apps exclusively to the Play Store. Given the choice between writing for Android or writing for Cyanogen, the profit-minded developer will almost surely choose the larger user base every time.

As for consumers, one variable in the calculus that Cyanogen seems to be ignoring is the fact that its customers are also Google's customers; its fans are Google's fans. To foment a very public schism with a company that controls so much of their data and their mindshare, may end up backfiring — and scaring off potential partners in the process.

An old aphorism goes something like, "Don't bite the hand that feeds you." By maligning Google so vehemently, and seemingly ignoring the larger corporation's work in building up the popularity of Android — not to mention creating the basis for its ecosystem — Cyanogen is playing a dangerous game that seems born in arrogance: its perceived success, and apparent high valuation, may have given its principals the notion that they can do no wrong.

But the same environment that led users to cheer them on and independent developers to do their coding for free no longer exists. If Cyanogen continues down this road less traveled, it may find itself in a lonely place — with no way to return.