OnePlus confirms it hasn't ended Developer Seeding Platform, working on making it better

OnePlus is one of the very few smartphone companies that promote third-party development on its devices via custom ROMs, mods and custom kernels. A couple of days back, renowned developers John Wu (the creator of Magisk) and Francisco Franco (the developer of Franco kernel) revealed on Twitter that OnePlus had brought an end to its developer seeding program wherein it would send the latest devices to select developers at no costs. The aim of the program was to make the third-party development of OnePlus devices flourish. However, with the news of the program coming to an end, many were left disappointed.

@oneplus just terminated the dev seeding program: no more devices sent to devs for development.
Devs like @franciscof_1990, @Dees_Troy, @osm0sis_xda, @arter97, all major ROM devs are on the list.
I'm "looking forward" to see how the 6t forum will eventually end up LOL.

— John Wu (@topjohnwu) November 27, 2018

For the record @oneplus just ended their Developer seeding program where they would send a bunch of us a "free" unit. It shouldn't impact things too much on the Kernel side for the 6T since it shares the same tree with the 6, but the rom scene will likely be fucked.

— Francisco (@franciscof_1990) November 27, 2018

In a turn of events, a OnePlus spokesperson issued a statement saying that OnePlus is still keen on promoting development of its devices, and it will revamp its program to better the custom development of OnePlus smartphones. Here's the statement issued by OnePlus:

We’ve temporarily scaled back our developer program while we work out how to make it even better in the future. We’ll be updating the selection criteria and communication channels with developers in our seeding program for better co-operation. We will restart the program and select Devs based on the new criteria and will work on providing the best possible support to community development efforts for OnePlus devices.

OnePlus has made a name for itself among the custom ROM crowd. Every OnePlus device so far has been well received by developers who have showered them with tons of mods, custom ROMs and custom kernels. In fact, OnePlus' first smartphone, the OnePlus One that was launched in 2014, got official support for LineageOS 15.1 recently. It, therefore, seemed absurd that OnePlus would take any action to displease people between whom it made a name. Everything's back to normal now. All's well that ends well, right?

Source: XDA Developers

Krittin Kalra

Krittin Kalra is a 20 year old Android freak. Striving for passions, chasing down his dreams and living a life without regrets is his sole mantra. A bit moody, he also does custom ROM reviews for AndroGuider. Currently pursuing his B.Tech, he aspires to follow his heart.