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Google Fuchsia release date, news and rumors

68 points by mikece 8y ago

walterbell 8y ago
> Fuchsia wants to be the best cross-device OS to date. To achieve this, Fuchsia uses a new tool known as ‘Ledger’ by the GitHub community. Ledger, once you’re signed into a Google Account on a Fuchsia device, will automatically save your place in all installed apps across all Fuchsia devices. Please implement this with an open-standard API (WebDAV?) so that multi-device OS/app state can be synchronized to a self-hosted and hardened device.
- WhatIsDukkha 8y ago
  https://github.com/fuchsia-mirror/peridot https://github.com/fuchsia-mirror/peridot I think that's it. https://9to5google.com/2018/02/02/fuchsia-friday-the-ledger/ https://9to5google.com/2018/02/02/fuchsia-friday-the-ledger/ For some background. It would be nice if people get interested in this and start coding before it's a done deal.
  - walterbell 8y ago
    > Behind the scenes, Ledger is currently powered by three cloud services. The first is of course the Firebase Realtime Database (acquired by Google in 2014), which specializes in keeping JSON data synchronized across multiple devices and smoothing over internet connection loss. This method also uses the tried and tested Google Cloud Storage, for basic file storage. There’s also work being done on a version based on Firebase Cloud Firestore. Does Parse have a healthy OSS community as a Firebase substitute? https://blog.back4app.com/2016/06/15/firebase-parse/ https://blog.back4app.com/2016/06/15/firebase-parse/
- Ajedi32 8y ago
  Well the code itself is open source, so that should simplify things quite a bit. As with Android though, maintaining a "de-googlified" build of Fuchsia is probably going to take significant community effort regardless.
- dictum 8y ago
  (Warning: rant.) That this centralized Ledger is something that will be deployed at scale (in true Google fashion, I expect avoiding it will require a fork, at once keeping the open source warm feelings around its brand alive and making it so only the obstinate will even try. But even default with opt-out would cover over 99% of users) confirms my new belief: Every article about Facebook and privacy should have the word "privacy" replaced with "Mark Zuckerberg's unsettling, mildly robotic countenance and demeanor".
  - jasonvorhe 8y ago
    That last paragraph doesn't make any sense.
gman83 8y ago
This article isn't very informative. For one thing "Andromeda" isn't Fuchsia, that was a proposed merger of Android & Chrome that was shelved in favor of Fuchsia. Kyle Bradshaw on 9to5Google has a pretty good series on Fuchsia that's much more insightful: https://9to5google.com/guides/fuchsia-friday/ https://9to5google.com/guides/fuchsia-friday/
- digi_owl 8y ago
  Andromeda was probably a bad misunderstanding/misrepresentation by the headline hungry press. If we look at recent releases of Android, it has taken on the update scheme of ChromeOS by detaching the Android layer from the Linux kernel. Meaning that Google can push updates to the Android layer without having to deal with hardware suppliers and carriers dragging their feet. While at the same time ChromeOS is getting the ability to run Android apps.
  - StudentStuff 8y ago
    Thing is, if the ancient, unmaintained kernel that said Android layer is running atop is vulnerable, your pretty hosed. Securing higher up in the stack won't do you much good, nor will attempting to containerize proprietary drivers and hoping that that will ensure a secure experience. Running modern kernels and upstreaming out of tree patches is the only reasonable way of supporting & securing these phones and tablets long term in a cost effective, until Google puts their foot down and says "No more custom BSPs", the horrible mess that is Android's security nightmare won't cease.
- CKN23-ARIN 8y ago
  That's funny, I thought "Andromeda" was Google's network virtualization stack. https://www.usenix.org/system/files/conference/nsdi18/nsdi18-dalton.pdf https://www.usenix.org/system/files/conference/nsdi18/nsdi18...
williamstein 8y ago
I'm loving ChromeOS plus Android plus Debian (via Crostini) on my Pixelbook. The beat of a bunch of worlds with solid integration.
Ajedi32 8y ago
I don't see where they're getting this "next year" figure from. Fuchsia has been under development since 2016, there's no reason it couldn't go another year or two without seeing a consumer release. Yes, if you just want to throw out guesses based on limited information then 2019 does seem at least plausible, but that's by no means certain.
- sgnelson 8y ago
  With Google, it could also never see the light of day.
  - coldtea 8y ago
    Or, given Google, just be cancelled post release, 2-3 years down the road...
  - XalvinX 8y ago
    With Google, there might be 4 different kinds of it.
mikece 8y ago
While Google hasn't officially said what the purpose of Fuchsia is, I think they have said that Flutter is the tool for writing apps for Fuchsia. Currently, Flutter emits apps for iOS and Android while the work-in-progress builds of Fuchsia run on the Chromebook Pixel rather than phones. This leads me to believe the suggestion that Fuchsia will replace both Android and ChromeOS.
ksec 8y ago
why new kernel and not linux?
- muro 8y ago
  To see whether a new kernel, designed 25+ years after Linux, can do things better. Linux is already there, what insight would it bring to do the same thing again?
  - mikece 8y ago
    The Linux kernel was made for desktops/workstations/servers, no? I think this kernel was designed with the use case of mobile/tablet/PixelBook in mind.
    - willtim 8y ago
      A feature I would like to see in a mobile OS is per-process power quotas.
      - gdamjan1 8y ago
        https://lwn.net/Articles/749738/ https://lwn.net/Articles/749738/
- pjmlp 8y ago
  Because Linux is GPL licensed, written in C and isn't a micro-kernel. While Fuchsia is MIT/BSD/Apache licensed, is written in a mix of C++, Rust, Go and Dart, while using the best practices from micro-kernels.
  - StudentStuff 8y ago
    The massive fragmentation and security problems caused by each device vendor creating a board support package based on an ancient version of whatever kernel they plan to run on the hardware they sell won't be resolved or seriously helped by Fuchsia. Google isn't willing to address the root issues of upstreaming their device specific code and pushing updates often like Nokia has with their Android line and Microsoft did with the exact same vendors with Windows Phone. Until Google forces their licensees to upstream the BSP patches they create, nothing will change.
Kudos 8y ago
This feels like a keyword stuffing exercise to capture searches like "Fuchsia release date" even though it doesn't have one.
wslh 8y ago
Techradar is the place that always appears in search results when you query for rumors of X for every X.
zenexer 8y ago
Release date! Release date! Release date! Just kidding; we don't know the release date.
XalvinX 8y ago
Yeah, but will it run Photoshop? Until you can run real apps, how can it compete with PC clones and Macs? I do appreciate my Chromebook a lot, but there isn't even a decent video player for it...I mean, it isn't a real OS despite all the hype.
- jasonvorhe 8y ago
  It sure seems you've missed a lot regarding Chrome OS. OS running Android and Linux apps now. Sure, Photoshop and Lightroom are both mobile versions, but I have a feeling that maybe WebAssembly will tempt Adobe and others to at least try to build their all's for the generation growing up with Chromebooks on school.
  - XalvinX 8y ago
    My Chromebook updates automatically about every 2 weeks or so, but last time I tried to install an Android app it still didn't work. And, yes, I do read tech news daily, get about 10 emails a day from sites like Techcrunch and so on, and am aware of these announcements. But it is only a very very small number of machines that these work on...not on Chrome OS itself....going against the original premise of Chrome OS which had me pretty excited about (was it) 7 or so years ago. Maybe I shouldn't have bought one so early??

68 points by mikece 8y ago

> Fuchsia wants to be the best cross-device OS to date. To achieve this, Fuchsia uses a new tool known as ‘Ledger’ by the GitHub community. Ledger, once you’re signed into a Google Account on a Fuchsia device, will automatically save your place in all installed apps across all Fuchsia devices. Please implement this with an open-standard API (WebDAV?) so that multi-device OS/app state can be synchronized to a self-hosted and hardened device.

WhatIsDukkha 8y ago
https://github.com/fuchsia-mirror/peridot https://github.com/fuchsia-mirror/peridot I think that's it. https://9to5google.com/2018/02/02/fuchsia-friday-the-ledger/ https://9to5google.com/2018/02/02/fuchsia-friday-the-ledger/ For some background. It would be nice if people get interested in this and start coding before it's a done deal.
- walterbell 8y ago
  > Behind the scenes, Ledger is currently powered by three cloud services. The first is of course the Firebase Realtime Database (acquired by Google in 2014), which specializes in keeping JSON data synchronized across multiple devices and smoothing over internet connection loss. This method also uses the tried and tested Google Cloud Storage, for basic file storage. There’s also work being done on a version based on Firebase Cloud Firestore. Does Parse have a healthy OSS community as a Firebase substitute? https://blog.back4app.com/2016/06/15/firebase-parse/ https://blog.back4app.com/2016/06/15/firebase-parse/
Ajedi32 8y ago
Well the code itself is open source, so that should simplify things quite a bit. As with Android though, maintaining a "de-googlified" build of Fuchsia is probably going to take significant community effort regardless.
dictum 8y ago
(Warning: rant.) That this centralized Ledger is something that will be deployed at scale (in true Google fashion, I expect avoiding it will require a fork, at once keeping the open source warm feelings around its brand alive and making it so only the obstinate will even try. But even default with opt-out would cover over 99% of users) confirms my new belief: Every article about Facebook and privacy should have the word "privacy" replaced with "Mark Zuckerberg's unsettling, mildly robotic countenance and demeanor".
- jasonvorhe 8y ago
  That last paragraph doesn't make any sense.

gman83 8y ago

This article isn't very informative. For one thing "Andromeda" isn't Fuchsia, that was a proposed merger of Android & Chrome that was shelved in favor of Fuchsia. Kyle Bradshaw on 9to5Google has a pretty good series on Fuchsia that's much more insightful: https://9to5google.com/guides/fuchsia-friday/ https://9to5google.com/guides/fuchsia-friday/

digi_owl 8y ago
Andromeda was probably a bad misunderstanding/misrepresentation by the headline hungry press. If we look at recent releases of Android, it has taken on the update scheme of ChromeOS by detaching the Android layer from the Linux kernel. Meaning that Google can push updates to the Android layer without having to deal with hardware suppliers and carriers dragging their feet. While at the same time ChromeOS is getting the ability to run Android apps.
- StudentStuff 8y ago
  Thing is, if the ancient, unmaintained kernel that said Android layer is running atop is vulnerable, your pretty hosed. Securing higher up in the stack won't do you much good, nor will attempting to containerize proprietary drivers and hoping that that will ensure a secure experience. Running modern kernels and upstreaming out of tree patches is the only reasonable way of supporting & securing these phones and tablets long term in a cost effective, until Google puts their foot down and says "No more custom BSPs", the horrible mess that is Android's security nightmare won't cease.
CKN23-ARIN 8y ago
That's funny, I thought "Andromeda" was Google's network virtualization stack. https://www.usenix.org/system/files/conference/nsdi18/nsdi18-dalton.pdf https://www.usenix.org/system/files/conference/nsdi18/nsdi18...

williamstein 8y ago

I'm loving ChromeOS plus Android plus Debian (via Crostini) on my Pixelbook. The beat of a bunch of worlds with solid integration.

Ajedi32 8y ago

I don't see where they're getting this "next year" figure from. Fuchsia has been under development since 2016, there's no reason it couldn't go another year or two without seeing a consumer release. Yes, if you just want to throw out guesses based on limited information then 2019 does seem at least plausible, but that's by no means certain.

sgnelson 8y ago
With Google, it could also never see the light of day.
- coldtea 8y ago
  Or, given Google, just be cancelled post release, 2-3 years down the road...
- XalvinX 8y ago
  With Google, there might be 4 different kinds of it.

mikece 8y ago

While Google hasn't officially said what the purpose of Fuchsia is, I think they have said that Flutter is the tool for writing apps for Fuchsia. Currently, Flutter emits apps for iOS and Android while the work-in-progress builds of Fuchsia run on the Chromebook Pixel rather than phones. This leads me to believe the suggestion that Fuchsia will replace both Android and ChromeOS.

ksec 8y ago

why new kernel and not linux?

muro 8y ago
To see whether a new kernel, designed 25+ years after Linux, can do things better. Linux is already there, what insight would it bring to do the same thing again?
- mikece 8y ago
  The Linux kernel was made for desktops/workstations/servers, no? I think this kernel was designed with the use case of mobile/tablet/PixelBook in mind.
  - willtim 8y ago
    A feature I would like to see in a mobile OS is per-process power quotas.
    - gdamjan1 8y ago
      https://lwn.net/Articles/749738/ https://lwn.net/Articles/749738/
pjmlp 8y ago
Because Linux is GPL licensed, written in C and isn't a micro-kernel. While Fuchsia is MIT/BSD/Apache licensed, is written in a mix of C++, Rust, Go and Dart, while using the best practices from micro-kernels.
- StudentStuff 8y ago
  The massive fragmentation and security problems caused by each device vendor creating a board support package based on an ancient version of whatever kernel they plan to run on the hardware they sell won't be resolved or seriously helped by Fuchsia. Google isn't willing to address the root issues of upstreaming their device specific code and pushing updates often like Nokia has with their Android line and Microsoft did with the exact same vendors with Windows Phone. Until Google forces their licensees to upstream the BSP patches they create, nothing will change.

Kudos 8y ago

This feels like a keyword stuffing exercise to capture searches like "Fuchsia release date" even though it doesn't have one.

wslh 8y ago

Techradar is the place that always appears in search results when you query for rumors of X for every X.

zenexer 8y ago

Release date! Release date! Release date! Just kidding; we don't know the release date.

XalvinX 8y ago

Yeah, but will it run Photoshop? Until you can run real apps, how can it compete with PC clones and Macs? I do appreciate my Chromebook a lot, but there isn't even a decent video player for it...I mean, it isn't a real OS despite all the hype.

jasonvorhe 8y ago
It sure seems you've missed a lot regarding Chrome OS. OS running Android and Linux apps now. Sure, Photoshop and Lightroom are both mobile versions, but I have a feeling that maybe WebAssembly will tempt Adobe and others to at least try to build their all's for the generation growing up with Chromebooks on school.
- XalvinX 8y ago
  My Chromebook updates automatically about every 2 weeks or so, but last time I tried to install an Android app it still didn't work. And, yes, I do read tech news daily, get about 10 emails a day from sites like Techcrunch and so on, and am aware of these announcements. But it is only a very very small number of machines that these work on...not on Chrome OS itself....going against the original premise of Chrome OS which had me pretty excited about (was it) 7 or so years ago. Maybe I shouldn't have bought one so early??