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In the Engadget article it was stated that: "Huawei claims that Harmony OS' IPC performance is five times that of Google's Fuchsia, and three times that of QNX

In the Engadget article it was stated that: "Huawei claims that Harmony OS' IPC performance is five times that of Google's Fuchsia, and three times that of QNX." Which I find fascinating. If they were building this as a Fuchsia competitor and are forced now to push it to market we could see rapid innovation on both sides of the divide actually coming to market soon!

snvzz 7y ago
Maybe they're using seL4? I do not know of their design, but I know some helenos devs are involved, so it's sure to be a proper microkernel multiserver system.
- sideeffffect 7y ago
  if it's based on seL4, which is licensed undel GPLv2, that we should be able to get our hands on the source code! yay!
  - snvzz 7y ago
    How so? seL4 is just the kernel. Linux can have software with a range of licenses in userspace, so can seL4. A system based on seL4 would be built as a bunch of services running under seL4, rather than by modifying seL4.
pjmlp 7y ago
Huawei has done several sessions at FOSDEM regarding their microkernels research. They are at it for a long time already.
- collyw 7y ago
  Micorkernels are still a thing? I haven't heard that phrase in ten years.
  - swebs 7y ago
    You must not have been looking really hard. QNX is very popular for embedded systems, and every modern Intel processor is running MINIX on its IME.
    - collyw 7y ago
      I didn't realize QNX was microkernel.
    - tyingq 7y ago
      The Android bootloader is LK.
      - ndesaulniers 7y ago
        Android does not distribute a bootloader. SoC vendors have their own.
        tyingq 7y ago
        I would hazard a guess that most of them are the LK bootloader that Google (contrary to your claim) does distribute large portions of: https://android.googlesource.com/kernel/lk/ https://android.googlesource.com/kernel/lk/ http://newandroidbook.com/Articles/aboot.html http://newandroidbook.com/Articles/aboot.html
        ndesaulniers 7y ago
        Notice the year of the final commit of any of those branches?
  - pjmlp 7y ago
    Yes, they power most of the embedded hardware where human life might be at risk. Minix runs on a large amount of Intel CPUs. Both Windows and macOS derived OSes, even though they aren't proper micro-kernels, have been slowly migrating stuff over to user space and increasing the sandboxing surface area. Given the new DriverKit, Apple's long term roadmap is to remove all driver APIs and replace them by user space ones. As stated at WWDC, when DriverKit will get feature X, the corresponding feature at kernel level gets automatically deprecated and will be removed in the following version. Until after a couple of macOS releases there won't be anything left to migrate over to DriverKit. One of the results of Project Treble was to introduce a new userspace layer for drivers, since Android 8, all new drivers are required to be userspace drivers. Only legacy drivers are allowed as classical Linux drivers. So yeah, they are still a thing.
dmortin 7y ago
Claiming and demonstrating are two different things. Let's see it in action.
yumraj 7y ago
> "Huawei claims that Harmony OS' IPC performance is five times that of Google's Fuchsia, and three times that of QNX." Is this with the spyware kernel running or without? If it's without, what is the real life performance? /s
- blackoil 7y ago
  Well they won't have final NSA approved version of Fuchisia with them so can't tell really.
- wmf 7y ago
  For a fair comparison, make sure that Play Services is also running on Fuchsia.
  - yumraj 7y ago
    Of course.
ETHisso2017 7y ago
Is Harmony open-source? Would go a long way to addressing spyware / hacking claims if so
hajile 7y ago
Faster, smaller, and more secure, yet the say it's the backup plan. Something's rotten somewhere. I also find the "smaller than Linux" claims rather strange. ANY microkernel will be smaller. Once you add those things back (at an almost insignificantly higher abstraction), I'm betting things get to be around the same size or slightly larger. I can't speak for other people, but I rather like not having to do the old driver search routine I did on Windows for every little thing.
- jeroenhd 7y ago
  > Faster, smaller, and more secure, yet the say it's the backup plan. Something's rotten somewhere. Yes, and that rotten thing is the app ecosystem. Without apps, nobody will use your smartphone. From what I've seen, HarmonyOS tries to be compatible with Android, but knowing the difficulty Microsoft and Blackberry had with getting the Android API to work a few years ago (before the many complications that have been layered on top since), I don't expect much from it. I think a switch of mobile OS will go down about as well as Windows Phone. Only if they port most important apps and games (phone gaming is big in China), their custom OS just won't get the popularity to get its own full app ecosystem.
  - HillaryBriss 7y ago
    > Without apps, nobody will use your smartphone even for Huawei, there will be some 3rd party apps. and most people spend almost all of their time on a small set of apps anyway. as long as the critically important apps (there are probably only a couple hundred) to most users are available AND Huawei offers some other benefits (e.g. relativeily low price for good HW), maybe an app store with millions of apps is not critical to success any more?
    - monsieurbanana 7y ago
      A couple of hundred critical apps is a huge understimation in my opinion. What is different now than when Windows Phone flopped? They had tens of thousands of phone apps (although I can't find an exact number), and it clearly wasn't enough.

snvzz 7y ago

Maybe they're using seL4? I do not know of their design, but I know some helenos devs are involved, so it's sure to be a proper microkernel multiserver system.

sideeffffect 7y ago
if it's based on seL4, which is licensed undel GPLv2, that we should be able to get our hands on the source code! yay!
- snvzz 7y ago
  How so? seL4 is just the kernel. Linux can have software with a range of licenses in userspace, so can seL4. A system based on seL4 would be built as a bunch of services running under seL4, rather than by modifying seL4.

pjmlp 7y ago

Huawei has done several sessions at FOSDEM regarding their microkernels research. They are at it for a long time already.

collyw 7y ago
Micorkernels are still a thing? I haven't heard that phrase in ten years.
- swebs 7y ago
  You must not have been looking really hard. QNX is very popular for embedded systems, and every modern Intel processor is running MINIX on its IME.
  - collyw 7y ago
    I didn't realize QNX was microkernel.
  - tyingq 7y ago
    The Android bootloader is LK.
    - ndesaulniers 7y ago
      Android does not distribute a bootloader. SoC vendors have their own.
      - tyingq 7y ago
        I would hazard a guess that most of them are the LK bootloader that Google (contrary to your claim) does distribute large portions of: https://android.googlesource.com/kernel/lk/ https://android.googlesource.com/kernel/lk/ http://newandroidbook.com/Articles/aboot.html http://newandroidbook.com/Articles/aboot.html
        ndesaulniers 7y ago
        Notice the year of the final commit of any of those branches?
- pjmlp 7y ago
  Yes, they power most of the embedded hardware where human life might be at risk. Minix runs on a large amount of Intel CPUs. Both Windows and macOS derived OSes, even though they aren't proper micro-kernels, have been slowly migrating stuff over to user space and increasing the sandboxing surface area. Given the new DriverKit, Apple's long term roadmap is to remove all driver APIs and replace them by user space ones. As stated at WWDC, when DriverKit will get feature X, the corresponding feature at kernel level gets automatically deprecated and will be removed in the following version. Until after a couple of macOS releases there won't be anything left to migrate over to DriverKit. One of the results of Project Treble was to introduce a new userspace layer for drivers, since Android 8, all new drivers are required to be userspace drivers. Only legacy drivers are allowed as classical Linux drivers. So yeah, they are still a thing.

dmortin 7y ago

Claiming and demonstrating are two different things. Let's see it in action.

yumraj 7y ago

> "Huawei claims that Harmony OS' IPC performance is five times that of Google's Fuchsia, and three times that of QNX." Is this with the spyware kernel running or without? If it's without, what is the real life performance? /s

blackoil 7y ago
Well they won't have final NSA approved version of Fuchisia with them so can't tell really.
wmf 7y ago
For a fair comparison, make sure that Play Services is also running on Fuchsia.
- yumraj 7y ago
  Of course.

ETHisso2017 7y ago

Is Harmony open-source? Would go a long way to addressing spyware / hacking claims if so

hajile 7y ago

Faster, smaller, and more secure, yet the say it's the backup plan. Something's rotten somewhere. I also find the "smaller than Linux" claims rather strange. ANY microkernel will be smaller. Once you add those things back (at an almost insignificantly higher abstraction), I'm betting things get to be around the same size or slightly larger. I can't speak for other people, but I rather like not having to do the old driver search routine I did on Windows for every little thing.

jeroenhd 7y ago
> Faster, smaller, and more secure, yet the say it's the backup plan. Something's rotten somewhere. Yes, and that rotten thing is the app ecosystem. Without apps, nobody will use your smartphone. From what I've seen, HarmonyOS tries to be compatible with Android, but knowing the difficulty Microsoft and Blackberry had with getting the Android API to work a few years ago (before the many complications that have been layered on top since), I don't expect much from it. I think a switch of mobile OS will go down about as well as Windows Phone. Only if they port most important apps and games (phone gaming is big in China), their custom OS just won't get the popularity to get its own full app ecosystem.
- HillaryBriss 7y ago
  > Without apps, nobody will use your smartphone even for Huawei, there will be some 3rd party apps. and most people spend almost all of their time on a small set of apps anyway. as long as the critically important apps (there are probably only a couple hundred) to most users are available AND Huawei offers some other benefits (e.g. relativeily low price for good HW), maybe an app store with millions of apps is not critical to success any more?
  - monsieurbanana 7y ago
    A couple of hundred critical apps is a huge understimation in my opinion. What is different now than when Windows Phone flopped? They had tens of thousands of phone apps (although I can't find an exact number), and it clearly wasn't enough.