Cyanogen is one of the most popular open source Android variants, running on the Oneus One available for all to tinker with on their own phone.

But CEO Kirt McMaster has bigger plans. He hopes to build it into a full-fledged Android rival with its own app store a more “open” structure that recalls the early days of Android.

He made the comments during The Information’s The Next ase of Android conference in San Francisco. His opening remark was unambiguous about his intentions: “I’m the CEO of Cyanogen. ’re attempting to take Android away from .”

His main gripe is that Android increasingly favors services, giving them deeper integration to Android than third-party alternatives. For example Now has additional permissions access to data that other apps don’t get.

Yet forking off Android is a tricky game. ile Amazon has had some success with its Fire OS on tablets, the Fire one was a disaster. It’s a two OS world, with Android dominating worldwide market share but iOS very popular, especially in the U.S. Even ndows one is having trouble gaining traction, it has Microsoft behind it.

An alternate view was offered by Dropbox’s vice president of partnerships, ibowitz. He said has played fairly with Android, allowing services like Dropbox to compete.

The story behind the story: en Android got started it was the “open” alternative to Apple’s seemingly locked down iOS. Over time, however, has sought to tighten how much modification third-parties can do, requiring more prominent placement of its own services, like the ay Store, Maps, Gmail. This trend is continuing, with pushing a uniform look feel to Android its apps with Material Design.