As someone who still has an HP Touchpad, the unfortunate pattern of AOSP / Cyanogenmod / LineageOS support is the following:
1) One volunteer spearheads the development effort towards keeping phone/tablet/device X supported.
2) Various other people draw on the 90% base work already done by Lead #1, add their own wrappers, tweaks, etc, such that the community on the whole appears to be vibrant and bustling around development for device X.
3) Lead #1 eventually stops supporting the project because he gets a newer device.
4) None of the developer's behind Lead #1's forks have sufficient technical knowledge to continue the base development without him, and all of their forks stop updating as well.
5) Community on the whole for Device X fizzles out.
I've seen it happen multiple times on XDA-developers forums. That dozens/hundreds/thousands of people are using an AOSP-based ROM on a device does not mean that the community necessarily has the technical knowledge to continue it without someone to steward the project. The volunteer leads do an incredible job, but at the end of the day, they usually only last as long as the device is the lead's daily driver--after that, they usually stop.
1) One volunteer spearheads the development effort towards keeping phone/tablet/device X supported. 2) Various other people draw on the 90% base work already done by Lead #1, add their own wrappers, tweaks, etc, such that the community on the whole appears to be vibrant and bustling around development for device X. 3) Lead #1 eventually stops supporting the project because he gets a newer device. 4) None of the developer's behind Lead #1's forks have sufficient technical knowledge to continue the base development without him, and all of their forks stop updating as well. 5) Community on the whole for Device X fizzles out.
I've seen it happen multiple times on XDA-developers forums. That dozens/hundreds/thousands of people are using an AOSP-based ROM on a device does not mean that the community necessarily has the technical knowledge to continue it without someone to steward the project. The volunteer leads do an incredible job, but at the end of the day, they usually only last as long as the device is the lead's daily driver--after that, they usually stop.