4 ms·

A couple of years ago it was believed that Fuchsia would replace Android and ChromeOS. Then, IIRC, it was said in a Google IO that it was just some sort of expe

by pier25 6y ago

A couple of years ago it was believed that Fuchsia would replace Android and ChromeOS. Then, IIRC, it was said in a Google IO that it was just some sort of experiment to test new OS ideas. What do you think is Google's masterplan for Fuchsia?

kenforthewin 6y ago
Like most of their products, I don't think there is a master plan.
- jrsj 6y ago
  At the very least I expect to see it used in "IoT" devices like Nest thermostats and stuff like that. Whether it ever replaces ChromeOS or Android is impossible to determine at this point though. Almost every attempt at running Android apps on another platform for compatibility has been a failure. Microsoft seems to have given up on it entirely.
  - sk0g 6y ago
    Wouldn't that be where Flutter could come in handy? If the same codebase cross compiles to Android and Fuchsia (hell, even iOS), lack of apps won't be an issue. The Android team doesn't seem fond of Dart/ Flutter, but that's not surprising. Who wants to voluntarily sign their death certificate, so to speak?
    - pier25 6y ago
      I could be wrong, but I imagine at least some people in the Android team would like a fresh start.
- pier25 6y ago
  I don't know. Fuchsia seems like a sufficiently massive effort to at least have some goal other than experimentation.
rvz 6y ago
> Then, IIRC, it was said in a Google IO that it was just some sort of experiment to test new OS ideas. That's a form of public denial on their side. Why would they upstream Chromium, LLVM, Rust and Android ART support then? It has first class support for Flutter as a way of running all Flutter apps from day 0. Don't be fooled too easily by that statement.
- AgloeDreams 6y ago
  Totally agree, Steve Jobs bashed smartphones and making them in the early 2000s, said that 7 inch tablets made no sense then shipped the iPad Mini, MS bashed phones without physical keyboards then shipped the Zune HD and WP7. Companies will say anything as long as it gets the job done and the job is to maintain sales.
  - tenebrisalietum 6y ago
    The 7 inch tablets didn't ship until after Steve Jobs died.
    - naasking 6y ago
      And even then, maybe they didn't make sense given the technology of the time, but they could have made sense later.
- jayd16 6y ago
  Its a thorough experiment, sure. I'm not sure that proves secret master plans. That said, if it finds a market fit as they go along I'm sure they'd use it.
dlojudice 6y ago
I believe the idea behind could be the same for Mindori project inside Microsoft years ago: "Midori was a research/incubation project to explore ways of innovating throughout Microsoft’s software stack. This spanned all aspects, including the programming language, compilers, OS, its services, applications, and the overall programming models. We had a heavy bias towards cloud, concurrency, and safety. The project included novel “cultural” approaches too, being 100% developers and very code-focused, looking more like the Microsoft of today and hopefully tomorrow, than it did the Microsoft of 8 years ago when the project began." [1] Later some of this ideas became core features on Windows. For a great overview about Mindori project: [1] http://joeduffyblog.com/2015/11/03/blogging-about-midori/ http://joeduffyblog.com/2015/11/03/blogging-about-midori/
- sterlind 6y ago
  It never shipped. A lot of beautiful code and proven concepts, and it just got tossed in the dustbin. Hopefully Fuchsia doesn't succumb to the same second-system effect.
  - Novukus 6y ago
    > It never shipped. A lot of beautiful code and proven concepts, and it just got tossed in the dustbin. It doesn't sound it was ever planned to be shipped? It was for experimentation, research and development. And some of that work made its way into Windows. Seems like a success to me. edit: > Midori was the code name for a managed code operating system being developed by Microsoft with joint effort of Microsoft Research. It had been reported[2][3] to be a possible commercial implementation of the Singularity operating system, a research project started in 2003 to build a highly dependable operating system in which the kernel, device drivers, and applications are all written in managed code. It was designed for concurrency, and could run a program spread across multiple nodes at once.[4] It also featured a security model that sandboxes applications for increased security.[5] Microsoft had mapped out several possible migration paths from Windows to Midori.[6] The operating system was discontinued some time in 2015, though many of its concepts were rolled into other Microsoft projects. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midori_(operating_system) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midori_(operating_system)
ensiferum 6y ago
Sometimes one can just wonder how many of these decisions to do something boil down to just one person being in the right place of the totem pole in order to a) sell the product to their superiors and get their buy-in b) drive their own resume for "being the guy who created X" rather than any technological reasons or valid business reasons.
arexxbifs 6y ago
Avoiding GPLv2. What Google says about their plans and what their plans actually are does not necessarily have to converge.
- m4rtink 6y ago
  License is import for an OS and most - it's far too important to not be covered by copyleft license like Linux kernel and most of usual distro userspace is.
nightowl_games 6y ago
> What do you think is Google's masterplan for Fuchsia? I think they made it pretty clear that Fuchsia is not "an experiment to test new OS ideas". https://fuchsia.dev/fuchsia-src/concepts https://fuchsia.dev/fuchsia-src/concepts Specifically: > Fuchsia's goal is to power production devices and products used for business-critical applications. As such, Fuchsia is not a playground for experimental operating system concepts. Instead, the platform roadmap is driven by practical use cases arising from partner and product needs.
- pier25 6y ago
  Thanks for the info. This totally contradicts what was said at Google IO's main keynote. Unless I'm remembering this wrong...

by pier25 6y ago

kenforthewin 6y ago

Like most of their products, I don't think there is a master plan.

jrsj 6y ago
At the very least I expect to see it used in "IoT" devices like Nest thermostats and stuff like that. Whether it ever replaces ChromeOS or Android is impossible to determine at this point though. Almost every attempt at running Android apps on another platform for compatibility has been a failure. Microsoft seems to have given up on it entirely.
- sk0g 6y ago
  Wouldn't that be where Flutter could come in handy? If the same codebase cross compiles to Android and Fuchsia (hell, even iOS), lack of apps won't be an issue. The Android team doesn't seem fond of Dart/ Flutter, but that's not surprising. Who wants to voluntarily sign their death certificate, so to speak?
  - pier25 6y ago
    I could be wrong, but I imagine at least some people in the Android team would like a fresh start.
pier25 6y ago
I don't know. Fuchsia seems like a sufficiently massive effort to at least have some goal other than experimentation.

rvz 6y ago

> Then, IIRC, it was said in a Google IO that it was just some sort of experiment to test new OS ideas. That's a form of public denial on their side. Why would they upstream Chromium, LLVM, Rust and Android ART support then? It has first class support for Flutter as a way of running all Flutter apps from day 0. Don't be fooled too easily by that statement.

AgloeDreams 6y ago
Totally agree, Steve Jobs bashed smartphones and making them in the early 2000s, said that 7 inch tablets made no sense then shipped the iPad Mini, MS bashed phones without physical keyboards then shipped the Zune HD and WP7. Companies will say anything as long as it gets the job done and the job is to maintain sales.
- tenebrisalietum 6y ago
  The 7 inch tablets didn't ship until after Steve Jobs died.
  - naasking 6y ago
    And even then, maybe they didn't make sense given the technology of the time, but they could have made sense later.
jayd16 6y ago
Its a thorough experiment, sure. I'm not sure that proves secret master plans. That said, if it finds a market fit as they go along I'm sure they'd use it.

dlojudice 6y ago

I believe the idea behind could be the same for Mindori project inside Microsoft years ago: "Midori was a research/incubation project to explore ways of innovating throughout Microsoft’s software stack. This spanned all aspects, including the programming language, compilers, OS, its services, applications, and the overall programming models. We had a heavy bias towards cloud, concurrency, and safety. The project included novel “cultural” approaches too, being 100% developers and very code-focused, looking more like the Microsoft of today and hopefully tomorrow, than it did the Microsoft of 8 years ago when the project began." [1] Later some of this ideas became core features on Windows. For a great overview about Mindori project: [1] http://joeduffyblog.com/2015/11/03/blogging-about-midori/ http://joeduffyblog.com/2015/11/03/blogging-about-midori/

sterlind 6y ago
It never shipped. A lot of beautiful code and proven concepts, and it just got tossed in the dustbin. Hopefully Fuchsia doesn't succumb to the same second-system effect.
- Novukus 6y ago
  > It never shipped. A lot of beautiful code and proven concepts, and it just got tossed in the dustbin. It doesn't sound it was ever planned to be shipped? It was for experimentation, research and development. And some of that work made its way into Windows. Seems like a success to me. edit: > Midori was the code name for a managed code operating system being developed by Microsoft with joint effort of Microsoft Research. It had been reported[2][3] to be a possible commercial implementation of the Singularity operating system, a research project started in 2003 to build a highly dependable operating system in which the kernel, device drivers, and applications are all written in managed code. It was designed for concurrency, and could run a program spread across multiple nodes at once.[4] It also featured a security model that sandboxes applications for increased security.[5] Microsoft had mapped out several possible migration paths from Windows to Midori.[6] The operating system was discontinued some time in 2015, though many of its concepts were rolled into other Microsoft projects. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midori_(operating_system) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midori_(operating_system)

ensiferum 6y ago

Sometimes one can just wonder how many of these decisions to do something boil down to just one person being in the right place of the totem pole in order to a) sell the product to their superiors and get their buy-in b) drive their own resume for "being the guy who created X" rather than any technological reasons or valid business reasons.

arexxbifs 6y ago

Avoiding GPLv2. What Google says about their plans and what their plans actually are does not necessarily have to converge.

m4rtink 6y ago
License is import for an OS and most - it's far too important to not be covered by copyleft license like Linux kernel and most of usual distro userspace is.

nightowl_games 6y ago

> What do you think is Google's masterplan for Fuchsia? I think they made it pretty clear that Fuchsia is not "an experiment to test new OS ideas". https://fuchsia.dev/fuchsia-src/concepts https://fuchsia.dev/fuchsia-src/concepts Specifically: > Fuchsia's goal is to power production devices and products used for business-critical applications. As such, Fuchsia is not a playground for experimental operating system concepts. Instead, the platform roadmap is driven by practical use cases arising from partner and product needs.

pier25 6y ago
Thanks for the info. This totally contradicts what was said at Google IO's main keynote. Unless I'm remembering this wrong...