https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CyanogenMod#Restructure_and_ce...
Honestly it looks to me that they just ran out of runway and dissolved into an internal power struggle, then someone representing the investor side of things came in to shut it all down and recover what could be salvaged.
"We will take pride in our Lineage as we move forward and continue to build on its legacy."
It actually makes sense as a business model, but they messed up by backstabbing their first customer (after contracting with OnePlus, they signed an exclusive contract with MicroMax that no other company can sell cyanogenos in India, which, had OnePlus not made OxygenOS, would have killed them.)
It was probably the stupidest move they could have done, as no company would trust them again, and lost them all the goodwill they had.
When they incorporated, a lot of people hoped it would help sponsor development (while others, suspecting what would happen, forked into OmniRom).
Unfortunately, once they incorporated, the company spokesman (McMaster) went against the whole original culture (they installed bloatware on their phones) and generally spoke without thinking (kill Google, etc.).
Now, they're seen as a weak wannabee Oracle.
copy and paste follows:
tl;dr: Cyanogen terminated their contract with OnePlus all of a sudden to enter an exclusive agreement with another company in India, causing the phone to be banned in the country. This is widely seen as a dick move.
OnePlus had a worldwide (excluding mainland China) non-exclusive right to use the Cyanogen trademarks and ship the software on their device. This agreement was in place for a time period, and said that Cyanogen wouldn’t work with other OEMs to develop or integrate the system during this time in the regions covered by the agreement. Cyanogen then went and made an agreement with Micromax that was exclusive (despite OnePlus already having non-exclusive rights to these countries), and told OnePlus they were terminating their agreement in an email simply saying they were terminating. Such a contract termination is most definitely unusual, and normally is not permitted without (significant) penalties... Micromax succeeded in their injunction request against OnePlus, preventing the import and sale of OnePlus devices, on account of their exclusivity deal.
https://www.xda-developers.com/cyngn-oneplus-micromax-the-le...
So I agree - Cyanogen had a competitive advantage, and could have been the Red Hat of Android. Signing any kind of exclusive deal killed any chance of that, and also alienated their open-minded community.
I don't think it's just hindsight that makes this sound really dumb, but it would be fascinating to find why they thought an exclusive deal was the way to go.
Now I need to find a LineageOS phone...
