Whether you’re a tireless “ROM-a-holic” or just a casual user of custom software packages, you can’t not be a fan of CyanogenMod’s work. CM is by far the most cohesive and efficient team of independent Android devs out there, spoiling us tech geeks with unofficial firmware updates ever since Froyo-based CyanogenMod 6.

The CM community has advanced immensely over the past couple of years, reaching the point of now being able to get tasty ROMs out for tens and tens of gadgets on a daily basis. The popularity of CyanogenMod firmwares has grown in direct proportion, which has also raised the bar of expectations.

The latest CyanogenMod version, Jelly Bean-based CM10, is currently in development, with an entire pack of high-end and mid-range Android devices being treated to nightly builds on a regular basis. But since the bar of expectations is set so high right now, the CM team has decided to shake things up a bit in order to put quality in front of quantity.

Until now, every CM version had nightly unstable builds, RC (release candidate) beta versions and finally stable releases. Now a new kind of release has been introduced in order to split the distance between nightly and RC and satisfy the needs of as many regular users as possible.

The new releases will be known as “M-Series” builds or simply “M” builds, and will go out “at the beginning of every month”. These will be available under the “experimental” tag, but will be more stable than nightly ports. At the same time, nightlies will continue to go out as often as they always did, so “ROM-a-holics” and independent devs not working with CM will still have their usual toys to play with.

As always when making a decision that can leave its mark on the community, CyanogenMod is open to discussion and will appreciate any feedback on the matter. In fact, CM says that it won’t continue with “M” builds unless the community’s response is good. If you’d be interested in more frequent partially stable ROMs for your devices therefore, drop a comment at the end of the post saying so and we’ll be sure to let the CM guys know about that. Or better yet, go over to the CyanogenMod forum and make your voice heard.

The first M-Series builds (aka CM 10-M1) are already available for the following devices:

Galaxy Nexus GSM (maguro build)

Galaxy Nexus Verizon (toro)

Galaxy Nexus Sprint (toroplus)

Galaxy S2 GT-I9100G (i9100g)

Galaxy S (galaxysmtd)

Galaxy S B (galaxysbmtd)

Captivate (captivatemtd)

Galaxy S3 Sprint (d2spr)

Galaxy S3 Verizon (d2vzw)

Galaxy S3 AT&T (d2att)

Galaxy S3 T-Mobile (d2tmo)

Galaxy S3 US Cellular (d2usc)

Nexus S (crespo)

Nexus S 4G (crespo4g)

Galaxy Note AT&T (quincyatt)

Google Nexus 7 (grouper)

Sony Xperia Acro S (hikari)

Sony Xperia S (nozomi)

You can get the M1 builds from Get.CM (they’re a bit hard to track as they’re not separated from nightlies, but look for the “experimental” tag), with more devices promised to join this list starting with M2 ports next month.