Timaphillips

I'm not a member of the team. But I just saw the post put up on their main page, which explains some things. It's a good read:

" Sorry if it seems like we’re “not doing anything”, but we set high standards on our work. One thing we will never do again is include blatant warez in our releases, we don’t want another Swype style incident. The engineering release of ESE53 is just that, warez. It was illegally obtained by an employee at Motorola from an engineering testing area, then sold to the highest bidder. Please excuse us for not wanting to taint our reputation by including or using it. If/when we get a sanctioned OTA 2.1 release we will look into it more thoroughly. Till then, we are keeping ourselves out of grey area ethics.
To address the “well you should still be releasing non 2.1 stuff” mentality, let me inform you of some of the things we’ve had to do behind the scenes.
We had to bounce back from a crippling nutshot when the sholes.info server went down, which was no small ordeal. We are indebted to the good folks at Beyond Hosting for helping us get our primary website up within a matter of hours, and to the people who sunk their time and effort into getting the main page infrastructure for it set up in that time. Try bringing up an entire site in under 24 hours, it’s not fun.
We also had to redo and push DMupdater, which was a task in itself. I still don’t know how that got finished as quick as it did. Camel deserves a big round of applause for his hard work and dedication.
Trevorj then had to do a last minute sanity check and rush release (rushed in time, not in quality) of DM1.0 He spent time he would have rather used for other things making sure the release went out in a working state, with the minimum of delay.
Getting the repositories back online was the next step, and Aschen Networks graciously provided VPS space at a moments notice. Provisioning the VPS, securing it, and getting git and gitosis setup properly took a day in itself, and recovering the scattered repositories and importing them took the better part of a week.
Meanwhile, the forum was being setup as well, and more work was being done on the repository server, mainly getting gitweb and git-daemon properly installed so that people could browse the source repositories, and we could more easily view changes as they were applied.
About this time we started importing and testing the latest 2.6.29 kernel release from AOSP, in an effort to keep the innovation moving. This consisted of a review by Trevorj and myself of hundreds of commits from AOSP, TI, and the mainline Kernel.org trees. We have been in-house testing new boot images, as well as updating the mkrom tools to work properly with git.
The engineering testing release of ESE53 dropped soon after, causing quite a stir. The general consensus was to wait for the official OTA, since the person who leaked it hinted at a binary watermark being included. Better safe than sorry.
Since then, we’ve put up the wiki at droiddev.org, which will soon have dev information, instructions for using the tools and repositories, and information pertaining to the rom image format we have pioneered.
SirPsychoS pushed the SP recovery source to the repository server sometime last week(forgive me for forgetting the date), and has been working on fixing the makefiles and dependincies. He has also retooled mkrom to use fakeroot, and made some other enhancements.
Bugzilla was just deployed to handle any user problems relating to our release, and this seems to have caught some flack. Let me state that having bug tracking is a pivotal part of a solid and stable release system. We need feedback on what is broken, and a forum is just not the right tool for that. Our Bugzilla installation automatically informs the proper parties when a bug is entered, keeps the various bugs in an easy to navigate format, and makes sure that everyone is informed along the way. No longer will your valuable user input be hidden under 30 posts about lolcats and earwigs.
We decided that we’d rather get our infrastructure fully operational before we do anything more, because a solid foundation makes for a solid project, a solid community, and a solid release.
To all those who have supported us during this bumpy transition, we thank you. It’s great to know that people can see through the fog and realize that we do this because we enjoy it, because it’s interesting, and because it furthers the community.
To those that scoff and spew vitriol, I hope you can excuse the fact that we value our integrity and our product stability more than fame.
sgx
If i have forgotten anyone or anything important, please let me know."

CRPercodani

Except ESE53 wasn't paid for. The Motorola employee released it himself for free. I find it funny that they say all this because IIRC Sholes/DroidMOD guys are the ones who originally PAID for the 2.0.1 SBF about a month ago and released it.

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So I'm guessin' there's questions that need addressin' like how he fresh in the adolescence and wreckin em'
Rules & Guidelines, Zero Tolerance Policy.

snake_fist_gung_fu

Well that kinda dose it for me. These guys just seem full of BS. I will be flashing to Pete's rom Sunday when I have some more time. Gotta love how the try to strike fear into people with the water mark comment.

tom108

eh. no worries. there are many better roms out right now. they were on the top originally but i think they would really have to step up the game to compete with most of the current rom releases.

ssantan2

I was never a big fan of their rom to begin with. the very first sholes rom I thought was way too buggy, then when pete made his bugless beauty I never looked back.

shrink57

At the end of the day, all rhetoric aside, whichever ROM is running best for me at the moment is the ROM I'll use. Something better comes along, adios! That's the beauty of having a flashable device, we can go where the wind blows... The drama behind the development is just an interesting diversion.

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Neil
Currently hooked on GB (rooted, overclocked and deoxed). Tomorrow, who knows

UBRocked

Yeah, I for one have not been counting the days until DroidMod 2.0 is released DroidMod 1.0 was on my phone for about 5 minutes so I will give 2.0 the same kind of opportunity.

Is it just me or was Sholes being updated regularly? It does seem like forever since anything...anything at all was updated. Then again...I haven't checked.

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Myself: Galaxy Nexus, Droid 3, Transformer, Logitech Revue, Sony Blu-ray Player with Google TV
Wife and Kids: iPhone4, Apple iPad, Galaxy Player 4.0, B&N NookColor
Retired: Thunderbolt, Droid Pro, Fascinate, 2 Motorola Droids (the OG), Galaxy Tab (7" WiFi), Archos 70

Droidking

DM 1.0 has been working flawless for me the past 3 wks. I really don't see a reason to flash to a new rom every day just because everyone else is . Stick with a rom that is dependable and has fewer fcs as possible and stick with it, that's my opinion.

radikal

It seems to me like they are all weird and dramatic, they may not be... at all. but i am not one to get tangled with something like that, i ignore it and their product

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kokiangel

I happen to like the way my phone is working right now and I like droidmod 1.0 so I am happy to wait for them to update. I also like that they seem to have a lot of integrity. I am not a total dummy about my phone but a lot of the root "stuff" does go right over my head so I feel better letting the experts deal with the finer points. Keep it simple for us less knowledgeable folks so we can all have a wonderful Android experience.

Droidking

Thank you very much!!!

Droidking

Just because EVERYONE is running cynanogen does than mean you have to too ? It sound like the" IT" thing to do now. Do your own thing, homie. No disrespect. I am totally happy with my rom now. Running @ 1g constant, no fcs, and its DM 1.0. To each his ( or her) own. Peace.

radikal

nah i have run most the roms, cyanogen is the one i am resting on for now. its a good rom. this weekend (if everything goes to plan) i plan to flash the zuesdroid sense rom, just for the weekend, then return to koush

kbayer

DroidMod -- flawless here as well.

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Give a man a fish, feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he'll sit around in a boat all day and drink beer.

Needsdecaf

I was rooted before the whole Sholes Mod Rooter (in fact, I thought the push-to-root thing was bad) and was running a few of the SM roms after switching from the early BB's by Pete.

I liked all the SM's, up to 2.0.5. 2.0.6 started to get buggy and DM 1.0 was ok, but on my phone it had a lot of memory leaks.

It was a nice product, and I think the SMUpdater helped a lot of people root, but I can't be bothered with all the BS... from both parties.

I actually nandroided back to my 2.0.5 build and stayed there until the ESE53 rom's came out. Then it was just a matter of seeing which one of those gave me the best battery life.

Droidking

Thank you..

UBRocked

Cool...do your own thing. No one is telling you to do what to do. We share opinions and experiences here. I personally don't like the DM rom and I can't stand the 12 yr. old girl drama that has been DM for the last couple of months. I don't think they should be airing their team's personal squabbles in forums while slandering each other. That doesn't scream integrity to me and it turns me off even more to their ROMs.

CRPercodani

They bring all the drama on themselves. There is no need to post a big rant like they did and down talk all the other dev's. I ain't buying the holier then thou act they try to portray.

shadowdude777

Oh, hey, on one hand, I could have a kickass ROM with all the latest leaks that haven't even been released to stock users that's also been tweaked. But it's WRONG!

I mean, why would I go with the ROM that's wrong when I could have an outdated, ancient, buggy, slow 2.0.1 that's barely better than stock? I mean, come on, it has no piracy!

Oh, wait...

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Current phone: Droid Charge @ 1200MHz. ROM jumping, waiting for CM to arrive!

dmodert66

These guys are funny. At least they gave me an interesting read while bored at work. I never used Sholes or Droid mods, because I have been happy with other releases. Sitting on BB ESE53 (0.6) atm. I won't likely play with a new rom until zuesdroid sense rom (beta) comes out. And I will probably just play around with it a bit and put .6 back on until Zuesdroid releases the Sense rom based on the Incredible dump (rather than the Desire dump)...

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Still waiting (semi) patiently for my Galaxy Nexus

dew912

Ex-DM user. Their Devs are arrogant and elitist (with a few notable exceptions). They constantly condescend and feel as though their product is a gift from teh gods. Newsflash: It's outdated, there's no reason why anyone should still be using it. Even their arch nemesis Pete, has a far superior ROM currently - and he's not an asshole

OMJ

I love how they wont use the ese53 file but tons of stuff in dm1.0 is from either the nexus or the milestone which is also illegal. Anyone who believes their integrity crap is pretty gullible.

For those who dm runs great for good for you. Everyone should use the rom that works best for them but it doesnt mean you have to buy this kind of BS

craigrn16

Ive been using sholes Mod for the longest. I never had an interest in Rooting till Sholes came out and I love it. Im still on 2.06 and have never moved because Ive had no issues with iy. I didnt upgrade to DM 1.0 because I heard it was very buggy so I'll stick with 2.06. If they ever come out with a 2.0 I may upgade or just wait for an Official 2.1 update.

andrew53517

Hey, I would recommend trying out Cyanogen's ROM, A.K.A, Koush's...Download ROM manager in the market and it flashes his recovery image for you, then downloades his latest ROM, and does everything you'd ever need. Just like DroidMod except, 10x better. If not more lol. Just a recommendation bud If not, enjoy DroidMod, I'm just doing some advertising for Koush, his ROM is awesome and he has the same set up as DroidMod, except no Drama and it's great! (even though I don't need the set up...) but its always convienent! Just was offering a suggestion!

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HTC Thunderbolt & ASUS Eee Pad Transformer
Prior phones: G1, Original Droid, HTC Incredible, Motorola Atrix!

Timaphillips

I see it as half "here's what/why we're doing/not doing," and half just telling people to settle the F down. I'm running 1.0 and have no issues. If any of those other ROM's had some "killer" feature then I'd try them out. But until that happens, a ROM these days is a ROM. Fast is fast, compared to stock, and no FC's is a joy.

But as with anything else. It's all just one big pissing contest in my opinion.

craigrn16

Really never knew about that. I'll look into it! Thanks :-)

craigrn16

I downloaded CMupdater. It says no Roms found? Am I not getting something?

UBRocked

Well I'm glad you didn't find a rom and try and flash it. CMUpdater is for the G1. ROM Manager is what you need

OZFive

I work in a small IT dept, we all have Moto Droids and are all running DroidMod 1.0. We are all waiting for 2.0 patiently and think that they are doing a fine job. Thank you DroidMod team for all your hard work and efforts, it is appreciated.

EAK128

I'm just happy I got good options out there to choose from and they keep getting better.

Groid

I was also a little put off by the Droidmod rant. But in fairness I rooted with Droidmod and have had not one single problem. I'm overclocked to a max 800, great battery life, 5 screens, landscape home page, used Root Explorer to eliminate camera sounds, etc. Not One Single Problem. I read 50 or 100 pages of problems with other roms and wonder why so many people have problems compared to the relatively few reported for Droidmod. I have little or no interest in themes, custom icons, or the other irrelevant cosmetic tweaks that seem to cause so many problems with other roms. I want stable, fast, and useful, which is what I get with Droidmod.

UBRocked

I think most everyone will agree that DM Updater is a great app, despite the ROM or the drama. I use it to flash between recoveries (SPRecovery and Clockwork) and it makes it simple and quick. It's just that most people (I'm just guessing here) don't what to hear the BS.

***Sidenote...I would argue that rooting with an app without ACTUALLY understanding what is happening is not good. People need to get familiar with simple adb commands, recovery, mounting partitions, etc. *IF* they plan to do anything outside of DroidMod. It will save themselves a lot of confusion and problems later***

snake_fist_gung_fu

No doubt its good software the problem is the team. It just seems there always on the edge of there next pms outburst.

slick

Eh, I've flashed Sholesmod/Droidmod ROMs before and currently I'm on Pete's ESE53 BB, which is just as stable as my stock 2.0.1 Droid was. I haven't had any problems with it at all, even with custom themes and other "cosmetic tweaks" (I mean literally NOT ONE FC, bug, or random reboot). Plus, I can tell you that the ESE53 ROMs I've flashed are far better than 2.0.1-based ROMs that I've had in the past (in terms of things like battery life, browser smoothness, multi-touch smoothness, etc). I'm not trying to convince you to switch away from Droidmod...I'm just saying that there are many stable ROMs other than Droidmod and many of them have more features (and I'm not just talking about "cosmetic tweaks").

jestexman

I use DM as a fail safe back up. If i screw something up and i dont know what i did. I know i can pull up old trusty and everything will be like it was. My .02 cents is worth a .01.

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Jestexman
Disclaimer: Because of flaming and so on.
If this has already been posted i guess either i have not used the search button or i just did not see it. Either way move on the the next post.

stedrocklp

I'm not sure if DroidMod is helping their case or hurting it. I also rooted using DMupdater and am glad I did and for that I am thankful. But once I really understood rooting I wanted to see if the grass was greener on the other side. Fortunatley for me and unfortunately for them it was not only greener but taller aswell. I would certainly try there latest but as for it being the only stable rom out there this is far from true. Its starting to feel like a soap opera with all the bantering between developers. Give use the best rom and we are all yours. As for their "high moral standards" that has absolutely no effect on wether I choose a rom or not. Keep up the good work devs.

Groid

Hey Slick,

I appreciate your comments on Pete's ESE53 BB and I am very curious about it because I want to understand the whole rooting, custom rom, themes, kernal management. Pete seems to be getting a lot of the community mindset. I'm also very happy to hear you are rock solid with your system, unlike so many who probably contributed to their own problems . That said, I have terrific performance and battery life, multitouch in browsing, gallery, and maps, wifi tethering, and rock solid stability. What do I really get with the ESE53 rom besides the eye candy?

Droid_Ninja

I first ROOTED with sholes SMUdater, and was working great! Then the drama, so I tried the DMUpdater... Nothing worked and it was stuck on the Droidmod Bootup screen. Tried asking for help from the Devs, but no responce. I guess they were still too busy dealing with there drama. Because of this team, I will never try rooting again. I will just wait for the 2.1 update. Thanks Sholes and DroidMod !

slick

For me, the ESE53-based ROMs feel like a better "fit" for the phone, if that makes any sense. More than likely, that's because the ESE53 is essentially the official file that we are supposed to receive via the 2.1 update (it was leaked by a Motorola employee, I believe). As a result, the ROMs based off of it are super smooth and you don't even feel like you're running a ROM. You feel like you're running a stock Droid instead of a 2.0.1 based ROM that was rigged and forced to run LWP (for example). The ESE53 has been optimized for and was totally intented to run LWP, and thus it does so effortlessly. But LWP is just one example among many. Battery life is better. The browsing is WAY better than the Milestone-based browser in 2.0.1 ROMS (the anti-aliasing is perfect, the pinch to zoom is smooth with no glitchiness, it scrolls like butter, pages load fast). The 2.1 gallery doesn't lag or stutter.

And, these are just a few of the things I've noticed without even being OC'ed. I've been running Pete's last few ESE53 iterations for weeks and I haven't oven OC'ed yet and have yet to have any FC issue or lag (may install a kernel tonight or tommorrow b/c I need WiFi tether). Yes, you will have to install your own kernel to get OC and WiFi (DroidMod does this for you), but it's easy peezy. Sure, as developers add more and more stuff to their ROMs, there's the chance that bugs will be introduced. But I can tell you that Pete's ESE53 v0.8 is as "bugless" as you're going to get out of a ROM. Like I said, I haven't had ANY bugs and it doesn't even feel like I'm using a ROM. But there are other great ROMs out there that are just as bug free and just as awesome (Chevy's, Blackdroid's, etc).

Cyanogen's/Koush's ROM and Pete's v0.9 BB have reached the point where they are basically the same as having FULL 2.1 on your Droid (3D app drawer and all). And, actually, they are better than full 2.1 in certain ways. For example, Pete's 0.9 BB allows you to enable a lot of awesome scripts. For example, there is one script that allows you to save a huge chunk of internal memory. Both of those ROMs have some minor bugs at the moment and I'd wait for those to be ironed out before flashing them (they are both very new ROMs). For the moment, I'd say go with Pete's ESE53 v0.8 because it, at this point, it has been thoroughly vetted and is as stable as you can get. Wait for those bugs to get rooted (no pun) out, and then hop on to BB v0.9 or Koush's or whatever other ROM you see out there that seems to stable enough for you.

Don't get me wrong, Droidmod is an unbelievably cool tool (like someone else said, it's good to keep Droidmod for unrooting or flashing between recoveries) and a great ROM, but there are other options.

And yet, even after typing all of that, I'd suggest you stick with Droidmod if you're happy with it. Afterall, if it aint broke, don't fix it.

Last edited by slick; March 19th, 2010 at 09:30 PM.

radikal

haha really ninja? there is an easy do it yourself way to do this? i respect your decision, just letting you know options

Droid_Ninja

Ya really, I was very pleased and impressed with the product I purchased from the Sholes team, ya of course there was a few FC's here and there, but I was confident in the teams abilities to fix the glitches! Then after that, everything went to crap. Now I am not a person knows how to do all the rooting stuff, that's why I went to Sholes, but if you are a company who boasts that your product will be a "All in one Package" ( Not exact words, but along those lines ) Then that company is obligated to live up to all the hype. But after they decided to bring there stupid immature and unprofessional disagreement, up to the surface. The "Team Cohesion" and along with there product, went down the drain, so to speak... This worried me, because now how am I ( The customer ) going to stay up to date and have my hopes of having the glitches fixed, if the company went down hill? What? There is a DMUpdater you say? I have tried that and the product they say will supersede the Sholes product, has failed in my case. I tried Customer Service , but to no prevail. So because of this horrible experience, I have "un-rooted" my phone and have decided to let a real company provide me with a product that will work. Despite all the delays, just lets me know that they care about there product and there reputation.

UBRocked

Couple of points:

You are not the customer here. You "purchased" something that was available to you for free on their website, but at a charge in the market. You basically "donated" to them. The difference is that they have no real obligation to you. Luckily, there is an entire community here that is willing to help you with any problems you have. If you're expecting good customer service from any dev...not gonna happen. It's just not their job, and that is how "open source" developing works. They develop, we report what works, what doesn't work and maybe...hopefully, the dev fixes the problems in future releases. In the meantime, we find fixes, workarounds, or better alternatives that we share within the android community.

If you are turned off by rooting now and want to wait for the 2.1 update...cool. Just understand that what Radikal was saying was that you DO have other options. If you need or want help to explore those options, that is not an issue There are many different workarounds and fixes to the problems that you are having...and be sure...there are many BETTER alternatives as well. OTA 2.1 or DroidMod are not your only options. There are issues that have been addressed to Motorola/Verizon and look how long it has taken to get some of those addressed...and it STILL isn't here. When you unroot and apply the official update...I hope that you are satisfied with it cause you may be left with a lot of waiting...

Again, I'm not telling you what you should do. Do what you are comfortable with. But don't group "all rooting has to offer" and "DroidMod" together as one and the same...thankfully their not!

Last edited by UBRocked; March 20th, 2010 at 05:26 AM.

Needsdecaf

This is why I thought that the whole "push to root" thing was a bad idea in the first place. Not because I didn't like it (I ran it, and loved the convenience), or because I didn't want people to root (there are always helpful people willing to teach) but because of this type of attitude shift.

The custom ROM (and really the Android experience as a whole) is about experimentation and open source, unproven apps. If you want proven stability, get an iPhone. Of course, be prepared to pay for them and wait 4 months for an app to go from concept to market. You're not going to get slick packaging, customer service that's at your beck and call, etc. The tradeoff is, that there's oodles of info on this and other boards, and app updates happen at lightning speed.

It's why I told my dad not to get an Android phone. The level of attention and monkeying around would blow his mind. He could never accept all the tinkering and monitoring.

jevfr

That's fine if you're talking about rooting and customizing, but I'm pretty sure your dad could handle it otherwise. I'm sure he's probably a lot more savvy than you give him credit for.

Needsdecaf

Trust me, he's not.

I should compile a list of "help desk" calls that he's made to me and send those to you.

vincentp

I never actually tried Droidmod, Sholes, or their updater to be honest. Never really wanted to since there were so many other options available and back when 2.0.1 ROMs were all the rage, I was a Pete fan.

Anyways, with all that I've seen from these guys and their rants, I really don't have any interest in trying their ROMs. It seems like - regardless of what is actually going on - they are just trying to stir up controversy or drama where there needs to be none, and that crap drives me crazy.

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The previous statement is false

ocean1

I think DM is dead they are far behind now. They just sit around and complain. Shame i loved the sholes and all the updates. Now its going to be playing catch up.

Shadowtech

I personally never touched the Sholes/DM stuff, mainly because I just played with Pete/Chevy's stuff from the get go. However at this point I don't think I ever will in the future either. These guys are just so full of themselves I don't wanna go anywhere near em.

Saying how ERE53 is "illegal" and they won't touch it because of that is just plain stupid. That is the ROM that most people want, and all they are accomplishing at this point is making sure their name fades into nothingness. When the official 2.1 comes out and these guys actually step back in the game.. Pete, Chevy, Adamz, and Blackdroid will all have their respective following eager to update their already stable ESE53 rom to an "official" one that will be practically the same thing. They don't want to "taint" their reputation by adding "warez", but they'll definitely tarnish it with all the drama.

I'm sticking to Chevy's roms personally. Not only does he make great kernels, but he can also build his roms around them. Simply Stunning 2.0.x series has been extremely reliable, and if problems do arise he is extremely helpful and quick to a solution. He has made quite a few useful tools to make certain tasks much easier for regular users, and he doesn't have an I'm-better-than-you attitude at all.

Sholes/DM put out a tool useful for a lot of people and cashed in on it. They should just stop talking, soak it all in, and try to make an appearance once a "legit" update comes out. Noone really cares about them changing each and every aspect of their website, adding links, blah blah. We just want ROMs and support for them, and we'll get them whereever we can. I highly doubt their next "big" release will really be any different than the other chefs out there anyway.

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