For our June 2018 “Community Choice” Project of the Month, the community elected Cosmic-OS, an AOSP-CAF based custom ROM with full Substratum support. Founder and Lead Developer Sagar Shah shared some thoughts about the project’s history, purpose, and direction.
SourceForge (SF): Tell me about the Cosmic-OS project please.
Sagar Shah (SS): Cosmic-OS is a custom aftermarket firmware distribution for Android Devices.
SF: What made you start this?
SS: I started this project due to my curiosity of learning new things. Development became my hobby and helped me to learn many new things.
SF: Has the original vision been achieved?
SS: No, the original vision is still [yet to be achieved]. We have a good userbase now, but we still need to bring new things for our users to make Cosmic-OS fully unique and innovative.
SF: Who can benefit the most from your project?
SS: All our users who use old, buggy software in their Android Device can use Cosmic-OS and can experience the change in their phone. People can taste stable Android Oreo with lots of customisations as well as stability.
SF: What core need does Cosmic-OS fulfill?
SS: The need for an up-to-date software and lag-free OS for smartphones. 50% of Android users use old versions of Android with lags. We try to change that scenario.
SF: What’s the best way to get the most out of using Cosmic-OS?
SS: One can install our OS and if he faces any difficulties, he can join our Google+ Community or Telegram Community Group for a friendly discussion with us. This way, he/she can achieve the most out of Cosmic-OS.
SF: What has your project team done to help build and nurture your community?
SS: We have tried our best to maintain more and more devices as possible. Once the OS was available for more devices, we automatically improved and expanded our community. We also have a telegram Channel where we post updates about changes and updates for new devices in a very basic yet effective manner. People can get notified with all the updates in Cosmic-OS via just one channel.
SF: Have you found that more frequent releases helps build up your community of users?
SS: Yes, Weekly updates attract more users and help us build a better userbase.
SF: What was the first big thing that happened for your project?
SS: Cosmic-OS was selected as Sourceforge Project of the Week thrice, which was a big thing for us. Recently, XDA officially reviewed Cosmic-OS in their YouTube channel which is the best thing that happened for our project.
SF: What helped make that happen?
SS: All the credit for it goes to our awesome community and users. Without them, we couldn’t have come this far.
SF: How has SourceForge and its tools helped your project reach that success?
SS: Sourceforge has provided us with free file hosting which helped us with our resources problem. Sourceforge gave our project a major boost, and allowed us to give multiple updates in an organized manner.
SF: What is the next big thing for Cosmic-OS?
SS: We will try to work as hard as possible and will add more unique features to it. This way, we will make our community even bigger and worth exploring.
SF: How long do you think that will take?
SS: It may take weeks, months, or even a year. But we won’t stop. We will keep working for this project and will surely achieve our dream in the future.
SF: Do you have the resources you need to make that happen?
SS: We have Sourceforge which helps with our Hosting issues. Build servers can be an issue in the future, but I am sure we will be able to tackle it. To maintain a big project, one has to invest some of their resources and time.
SF: If you had to do it over again, what would you do differently for Cosmic-OS?
SS: If I had to do it over again, I would not do the same mistakes I did earlier when I was learning. In its initial phase, Cosmic-OS wasn’t as good as it is right now. [It’s become this good] thanks to the experience I got while working on this project for 1.5-2 years.
SF: Is there anything else we should know?
SS: There are lots of YouTube videos about Cosmic-OS for different devices which shows Cosmic-OS in action. People should watch them to get an idea about our project. Our main aim is to create a community where people can have a friendly discussion and can #ExploreTheCosmos with us! (Yes, #ExploreTheCosmos is our tagline)
What is substratum support and what is AOSP-CAF?