I don't understand the cynicism here. Android's fragmentation was the original sin that lead to fragmentation and the new that we've seen for years, until Google semi-fixed the mess with a) Play Services (short term) and b) Project Treble.<p>Google were so convinced of the value of open source that they didn't anticipate that almost all OEM's would rather ship their Android forks than to stay close to upstream. If they hadn't intervened, Android as a platform would be useless by now and app developers would need to implement various ways of handling notifications, storage access, etc just to ship their apps to a broad audience of device owners, Samsung would've never upped their update game and there wouldn't be 2-3 versions of Android on the majority of devices, but more like 5-10, depending on how many manufacturers would've survived in the market.<p>Android still allows for easy side loading of applications, there are still major independent after market Android versions out there, you can develop for Android in various languages, using a huge selection of IDEs and there's open source alternatives to Play Services that Google neither litigates against nor seems to actively fight against. Google didn't even manage to gain any relevant market share with their Pixel line of devices, of which most run Android. They could've done a lot of nefarious things by keeping newer Android versions Pixel exclusive until they publish the source code to OEMs, for example. Instead, they are making it easier to quickly move an existing Android code base to the latest version by abstracting away a lot of the complexity (project treble).<p>Is Google still primarily am advertising company that tracks its users? Of course. Do they have their own motives to keep Android at the top of the mobile OS market? Of course. But a lot of the comments see evil scheming where Google probably had to act quickly to ensure that Android has a future and that developers didn't lose interest in the platform in favor of iOS.
I am a Linux kernel contributor and former golang and chromium contributor and to be honest the latter experiences makes me leary about contributing to another Google project.<p>There generally tends to be an insular 'cathedral' rather than 'bazaar' approach to Google projects where those working for the company get considerably more say and control than outside contributors.<p>The whole issue I have with it is that they pretend otherwise. With go many people laboured under the misapprehension that they could have more input than was actually possible. Not so different with chromium.<p>The cathedral model is fine but be honest about it.<p>With the Linux kernel if you have a good idea and can defend it you have a genuine chance of contributing. So I know my limited spare time efforts aren't wasted. With fuchsia I couldn't be so sure.<p>I hope I am wrong but the fact they are only now taking potential contributions suggests otherwise.
I've heard Fuchsia referred to as a "principal engineer retention project" at Google. I'd be curious to know if others have heard the same.
AOSP is an open source project, which is impractical for any business to run because of apps' reliance on proprietary google play services.<p>Chromium is an open source project, but proprietary chrome has the largest browser market share and they like to abuse their position to not play well with standards bodies.<p>Google can develop Fuchsia. It'll even be cool piece of tech, but I do not for a second believe that contributing to the project would benefit anyone but Google.
Looks like you still cannot contribute without granting copyright ownership to Google. In turn, GOOG licenses it out under a BSD (or BSD-like) license.<p>This is a big difference relative to Linux, and its part of why Linux works so well as a collaboration between competitors. The GPL's copyleft acts as a joint development agreement between equals.<p>IMO, Fuchsia's model only works well for integration partners that are willing to act as sharecroppers in the ecosystem. That certainly does work for some device manufacturers, but it cannot serve as the foundation of a new Free operating system.
I'm still not clear on what fuchsia is trying to be - or more specifically, why is Google developing it. What is the end goal here, from a business perspective?
If contributing to your project requires much more than <i>git commit --signoff</i> — in Fuchsia's case, a full-on Google Account! — this will exclude many pseudonymous developers who conceive of things such as privacy in terms of capabilities (not pinky promises). Which seems relevant for a security-focused OS.
I'm a little sad that there aren't any comments describing what is technically novel around Fuchsia and why it is/why it isn't interesting from an OS design standpoint.<p>I get the sense that its advances are probably too low-level for most app developers to care, but that's kind of precisely why I'd love a comment elucidating them a bit.<p>Edit: For example, the Fuchsia docs list the primary talking points as secure, updatable, inclusive, and pragmatic. How well does it live up to those principles? Will they bring practical benefits? What's exciting/new about what's being done here?
> Fuchsia is a long-term project to create a general-purpose, open source operating system<p>Why do we need this? We have Linux. It works. It is open-source, general purpose. It needs more support to become more mainstream (like what Valve has done with Proton).<p>Don't like Linux? Start with one of the BSDs. Heck, start with Haiku. Any of these projects are lightyears ahead of anything that's just starting.<p>The most likely explanation is that _we_ don't need this, but Google does, for some strategic purpose. It must be for some pretty compelling use-case, because we know how happy they are to kill projects.
Google and Opensource a joke of century.<p>Chrome -> Make chromium opensource but add spyware that phones home on every second and with new manifest v3 make sure extensions like ublock origin don't work<p>Andriod -> Make tip of iceberg opensource but force every vendor to use Service and lock down whole ecosystem around it. And make sure there is no way to block ads on youtube for andriod.<p>Fuchsia -> Initial Stage make people think they are open they are helping community for first 5-10 years. After that implant spyware etc.<p>Same strategy different form === Modern Polymorphism by Modern Liars.
I find it kind of hilarious how large a proportion of the roadmap is just migrations of various kinds. If the goal here was to encourage external contributions, I can't imagine a much worse sales pitch.
Fuchsia will e to Android and ChromeOS what Servo is/was to Firefox. Eventually the guts of Android and ChromeOS will be replaced with Fuchsia while end users won't see a radical change. It might feel like moving from XP to Vista or OS 9 to OS X.
OT: Just a second ago, I was setting up unattended-upgrades for security updates
for a new Ubuntu box and I am once again puzzled why the largest Linux distribution has such an underwhelming UX for an crucial feature. Long story short, I welcome any new contender in the OS space.
So maybe open source, [mostly] closed ecosystem? Add a bunch of Spyware from Google and get every app maker to add a dependency to Google services and they are golden for the collection of data on all your "smart" things<p>Sorry/not sorry for the cynicism; I feel it is warranted given what "open source" means on Android. Google talking like they have noble open source ambitions means nothing. They have a lot of amends to make before they begin to seem like a win for society and the industry and they seem to be going in the opposite direction.
Is there any comparison between Fuchsia and the Genode OS, which is also capability-based? I'm wondering what one has/does that the other doesn't?
Let's hope Fuchsia fares better than Hurd.<p>Also, I guess the adoption of Fuchsia will be a litmus test of the GPL. Will its possibly technical merits outweight the strength of GPL to avoid fragmentation? I suspect the GPL has served Linux very well in this regard.<p>Given Google's muscles it will most likely have an impact in the mobile world, but whether it will reach beyond into the area of general computing is less certain.
Would love to see what it looks like: <a href="https://fuchsia.dev/fuchsia-src/concepts/graphics/scenic/scenic" rel="nofollow">https://fuchsia.dev/fuchsia-src/concepts/graphics/scenic/sce...</a>
Anyone else bothered by the black banner saying "Google is committed to advancing racial equity for Black communities" in technical documentation (<a href="https://fuchsia.dev/fuchsia-src/contribute/roadmap" rel="nofollow">https://fuchsia.dev/fuchsia-src/contribute/roadmap</a>) ?<p>This is simply an advertisement for Google, and just like any other advertisement it has nothing to do in technical documentation, especially in a project where they want other companies to contribute.
The one singular nice thing about android was that the kernel was GPL. This put a (rather high) limit on the stupidity that could go on. Fuchsia changes that.
That is the most hideous source control system ever.<p>Do they really need to be developer hostile just because Github is owned by Microsoft? I mean seriously, who has time to commit to a project with a random set of tooling.