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I already made a similar request about half a year ago (see: Merge firmware and rom?). As several other tag/retag/synonym requests, this is still open and unprocessed (i.e. neither rejected nor completed). Maybe the reason is that it's still not clear which way we should go -- but for that it doesn't help to ignore it completely.

Drawing conclusions from the discussion there, let me renew my request for work-to-be-done at that place, but put it in a little different way. We should:

  1. Rename the tag to 'device-firmware' and (optionally) make 'firmware' a synonym (as we already have , this would be consequent; here the "radio" tag was simply dropped). Also, as Flow wrote: In the past, if we had an ambiguous tag we specialized the name(s). This step should be performed for sure.
  2. Optionally, again think about merging the whole thing with the , as already confirmed by Flow in his comment to the answer there: device-firmware == rom (interpreting SaintWacko's comment following that one: "firmware != rom" as it's not clear what firmware is meant -- which is clear with our reference to "device-firmware" as opposed to "radio-firmware").
  3. if not performing that "optional step 2", we should consider renaming 'rom' to 'stock-rom' (as opposed to ), for the same reasons given for #1 (specializing names). Again, 'rom' could be made a synonym or, as in the case of 'radio-firmware', simply be "dropped" (yes, there was a "radio" tag once).
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  • I've done #1. I have not yet done #2 - I'm thinking about it a little bit. Initially, it seems to make sense because of the way people tend to use the word "firmware" to mean "Android system", but I'm not sure if that's necessarily true of every question using the firmware tag.
    – eldarerathis Mod
    Commented Apr 3, 2013 at 3:56
  • Trouble with the word "ROM" is its ambigousity. If used, you always have to check the context whether it means the firmware, a part of internal storage (where the firmware sits), or even the radio-firmware and its storage (in admittedly rare occasions). Inheritance of the old "cartridge" times... You probably will also argue on step 3 that 'rom' could be used for questions independent of stock or custom (generic). I agree, and in that case would recommend to "split" the 'rom' tag (creating a 'stock-rom' tag additionally; I'd do the re-tagging and tag-wikis, of course).
    – Izzy
    Commented Apr 3, 2013 at 6:06
  • We do have stock-android, so maybe that serves the purpose of stock-rom anyway? Not all questions may necessarily relate to flashing a ROM in that tag, but using it with rom-flashing seems reasonable.
    – eldarerathis Mod
    Commented Apr 3, 2013 at 14:10
  • Good point! Let me check in how far 'stock-rom' and 'stock-android' differ or match. One could argue the former is about finding images and referring to the system as such (from a technical view), while the latter refers to "stock features" (Edit: Exactly that seems to be the case). My, that gets confusing...
    – Izzy
    Commented Apr 3, 2013 at 14:19
  • Re-thinking the entire mess: @eldarerathis, simply place your first comment as answer (so I can accept) and mark the entire thing as completed. If we want to go for all that 'rom', 'stock-rom', 'stock-android' stuff, we should do so with a separate task/question. Let's leave 'rom' for generic, 'stock|custom-rom' for specific ROM stuff. 'stock-android' might rather relate to `vanilla-android' (again a different task). If you agree (and do as suggested), I would take care for the tag wikis to avoid future confusion.
    – Izzy
    Commented Apr 3, 2013 at 14:27

1 Answer 1

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I renamed to to make it a little less ambiguous, but didn't do anything with the ROM/custom-rom/etc portions of it at this point. It might be worth a separate discussion of some sort, but I could feasibly see reasons why we would want these separate (e.g. "device firmware" could refer to camera firmware or something, not necessarily the phone itself as the "device").

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  • Thank you, eldarerathis! But I must disagree with your last sentence: "the device" always is "the device" (i.e. "the Android device"). The camera is but a "component". As we have the 'radio-firmware' tag, we might introduce a 'camera-firmware' tag if needed -- though I never heard anybody flashed such a thing: sure, there is a corresponding entry in some service menus, and a matching "secret code"; but all I read was "keep your fingers off that" :)
    – Izzy
    Commented Apr 3, 2013 at 14:51
  • OK, as promised I tried to take care for the tag wikis. I hope it didn't get too confusing (especially for device-firmware; updates and improvements welcome). And I hope I didn't miss anything...
    – Izzy
    Commented Apr 3, 2013 at 16:10

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