Android L on OmniROM Is Progressing

Having a project which is entirely community-driven and -led is a daunting task, and something we are all so excited to be a part of. It also means we have a variety of questions come in on a daily basis, from "Y U NO SUPPORT [INSERT OBSCURE DEVICE]?" and "How do I flash Gmail?" to "When is L coming out on Omni?" We love interacting with the community, but we also haven't done a great job of communicating where we're at with certain things, and that's something we'll be working on.

We interrupt this broadcast to announce that if you're interested in helping Omni communicate with the community go Volunteer!

To answer the last question about an ETA on when Omni rolls out Android Lollipop, it's coming soon. The more that our maintainers get done now, the sooner it will happen. Our first priority is getting all of the hardware support stuff cleaned up and ready, and we've already seen several devices as old as the Galaxy Nexus (thanks to MWisBest) start to come up and build successfully. In the coming days we hope more maintainers will complete their bring ups and we can progress towards a nightly status.

It is also a reality that not all of our currently-supported devices will receive Android L - largely in part to the lack of OEM support for L, but also due to the fact that we just don't have the maintainers available to support every single device. If we don't have an active maintainer for a device, then it's a pretty good chance that the device will not be supported on L going forward. HOWEVER, if you're interested in becoming part of the Omni project, please let us know and we'll work to get you involved.

One thing which has become abundantly clear with regards to AOSP 5.0 - Google does not care about, or seem to like, AOSP users. They're breaking the AOSP applications left and right, and pulling many of them back to be proprietary. We're in the process of getting people together from various projects to fix this. Get in touch if you're interested - we want to make AOSP awesome again, even without Google apps!

One final thing of note is that if you have a device which will not be receiving Android L via OmniROM, we are currently evaluating the feasibility of having a long-term support sub-project working on 4.4.4 if there are enough users with devices that will be left behind. That is another reason to get in touch with us, as if there is enough interest it will help drive the direction.

So to sum up: Soon. Help us help you. Long live AOSP!