The founder of the popular AOK(Android Open g oject) Android ROM has just joined forces with Cyanogen Inc. Roman Birg will join Cyanogen as an employee in an unspecified position, but presumably he will be working on development.

AOKis widely seen as the second most popular Android ROM behind CyanogenMod, the notion that its founder will join up with Cyanogen seems promising for future CyanogenMod development.

roid, which first reported the news, called it “exciting” saying that “only good things can come from this.”

CyanogenMod rising

CyanogenMod is the most closely watched of the Android ROMs right now since it is the first to try move from a community-driven open source project into a full-fledged business. In September, Cyanogen Inc. raised $7 million in funding to start creating its own Android-based mobile platform to compete with Apple, , Microsoft. It later raised another $23 million.

The company has already put its forked version of Android on one phone, the Oppo N1, a special edition phone that went on sale in late 2013. A second phone from startup Oneus is expected to ship with CyanogenMod before the spring.

Beyond preloading its software on phones, Cyanogen is also focused on improving CyanogenMod’s stock apps, as leaves Android’s open-source stock apps to wither on the vine. Earlier in nuary, GalleryNext, a beta version of CyanogenMod’s gallery app, went live for early testers in ay.

Cyanogen also tried to get a one-click installation app into ay, but that was quickly kyboshed by . The app is now available as a direct download from the CyanogenMod site, also requires a ndows installer to complete the process (a beta version for Mac is also available).

Don’t worry, unicorn lovers: Even though Birg is going to be a Cyanogen employee, AOKmade clear on its blog that the ROM wasn’t going anywhere that Birg will still contribute to the project.