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Paranoid Android's funds are bone-dry, team asks for donations
- The Paranoid Android team announced that it has run out of funds.
- As a result, the team asked people to donate any amount of money through PayPal.
- Paranoid Android is one of the older custom ROMs that introduced features like glanceable notifications and dynamic system bars.
Paranoid Android looks to be in some trouble as the eponymous team behind the custom Android ROM announced it ran out of funds to keep things going.
According to Paranoid Android’s announcement on Google+, its website and Gerrit went down a few days ago. They have since gone back up, though the team said the downtime was due to a lack of funds and increasing numbers of bills.
In an effort to stave off other incidents, Paranoid Android asked folks to make donations through PayPal. Unfortunately, the team seems to be caught between a rock and a hard place when it comes to asking for money.
Responses on Reddit seem to be mostly apathetic, mainly due to how quiet Paranoid Android remained for over six months. That is not to say that the team did nothing — the Gerrit shows the software progress that it made — but that updates have been few and far in between.
Team member evan1123 acknowledged as much on Reddit and said the team did not ask for donations due to the irregular updates. However, he also said only two people footed the server bills for years, while another team member said students with jobs comprise the bulk of Paranoid Android.
There is a core team of developers that continually works on the custom ROM, said the other team member, but development is slow due to them working during their free time.
We do not know whether Paranoid Android will have enough to stick it out for the long-term. Unfortunately, a combination of irregular updates and other custom ROM options that include LineageOS makes it feel as if folks might not miss Paranoid Android if it goes away.