CyanogenMod silenced by internal conflict

Popular Android modder CyanogenMod has run afoul of some nasty infighting, leaving it without the cyanogenmod.com domain.

CyanogenMod is a popular open-source firmware for mobile devices. Based on the Android OS, Cyanogen offers a range of tweaks and features that aren't available on the default software. At least 3.1 million people were using the free firmware as of August this year.

But it looks as though Cyanogen has run into a few internal issues. A post via its Facebook page detailed the whole sorry story.

It appears that back in 2009, when the modding group was small and cash poor, the cyanogenmod.com domain was actually bought by a third party and donated back to the group.

However, as the post said:

The person owning the cyanogenod.com domain was caught impersonating Steve [Kondik, Cyanogen dev and founder] to make referral deals with community sites. When confronted and asked to hand over control of the domain amicably, he decided he wanted US$10,000 for it, which we won't (and can't) pay. We contacted those he had established deals with, only to discover that the person tasked with maintaining our web presence was setting up deals under the CM name.

The group refused to pay the amount, seeing it as tantamount to extortion. Sadly, the domain owner made good on his threat:

All of our records were deleted, and cyanogenmod.com is slowly expiring out of the internet and being replaced by blank pages and non-existing sites. @cyanogenmod.com email is now being directed to a mail server completely out of our control, too.

While the Cyanogen team works out what the next move is, it has asked anyone who believes they've entered into a deal with Kondik himself to double check via the email address Shade@chemlab.org, and that any dev-related questions be directed to cmcyanogenmod@gmail.com.

The CyanogenMod team has made it clear that it intends to press charges over the whole affair.