You can flash Gapps to get the G-suite in CyanogenMod.

Download at http://goo.im/gapps

Copy to your SD, reboot into recovery, flash the .zip file, reboot.

Read his question again. He didn't ask how to do it, he knows that. He asks why it works.

I was wondering the same thing when I read the article - my best bet is that the idea of ‘cracked’ G-Suite keys is a journalistic fiction invented for the sake of the story.

Not that it's legal for them to distribute it when they are not certified, but I don't think that there is actually a key required.

You can open the .zip and replace the keys or clockworkmod which cyanogenmod uses allows it to copy from recovery by ignoring the fact keys are different from platform. I guess since they just provide binaries and not source, and google makes money when you use their apps and provide them data they don't care that other projects have GAPPs for dl

The idea is that you can backup the Google binary blobs from your stock OS, install CyanogenMod, and then restore your own binary blobs. In practice most people just download GApps from illegal sites because Titanium Backup has such an awful UI. But if Google ever went after the download sites you'd still be able to use the backup method. Which is probably why Google doesn't bother with the download sites.

It's not blessed by Google. In fact they sent a C&D to CM over it.

http://gizmodo.com/5367420/google-threatens-cyanogen-android...

The site(s) you're downloading it from are committing copyright violations and are subject to a DMCA takedown.

> The site(s) you're downloading it from are committing copyright violations and are subject to a DMCA takedown.

Yes, that is technically true. But in practice, it's not like Google just haven't noticed yet and are likely to take them down any day now: the current situation (cyanogenmod ships without gapps, but google won't prevent goo.im hosting them or cyanogenmod linking to goo.im) was worked out in 2009 after that C&D, and Google seems to have been fine with it for the last 4 years - they even let goo.im have an app in the play store - even if, officially, they still reserve their right to assert their copyright in the future.

(The wording of the license for gapps now specifies that the licence is scoped to the device[1], so an end-user who installs gapps (e.g. from goo.im) on cyanogenmod is not committing copyright infringement if their phone came with gapps (i.e. not kindles etc.))

[1] "..licensed to handset manufacturers shipping devices", http://source.android.com/faqs.html

Yet Google have permitted goo.im to continue making the apps available for download for years now. The site is registered via a US domain registrar to an address located in the US, so the individuals in question are not beyond the reach of a DMCA request.

Google obviously decided some time ago that cutting off CyanogenMod from the Google universe would not be in their best interests, whatever the strict legality of the situation.