6 ms·

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?

by kace91 6y ago

claydavisss 6y ago
an OS Google can control. Open source just like Go is open source - you are free to download and use it, but Google controls it.
bun_at_work 6y ago
I remember reading a couple years ago that the goal is IoT devices. It runs on the Zircon kernel, which is a true microkernel (as I remember, haven't been paying attention recently). This is pretty ideal for IoT, since manufacturers should be able to spin up only as much OS as they need on top of the Zircon kernel. Fuchsia specifically is looking to be a full-fledged OS, I think, for devices like Chromebooks or similar. I think they expect to get Fuchsia to a place where it can run Android apps natively, then put out an OS that can run native apps, Android apps, etc, all while being tied in to Google's services. This is definitely some speculation, but that's what I'm seeing so far.
- cogman10 6y ago
  It gives google the ability to thwart a major security problem that android has. That is, manufacturers choosing to drop support for a device. Because the important parts of Fuchsia are all controlled by google, it means they can theoretically keep devices running and up to date indefinitely. They can control the majority of the software while manufactures only need to supply their drivers. Manufacturers dropping driver support, while bad, isn't the end of the world. It's a much smaller attack vector than the whole kernel never getting updates.
  - bun_at_work 6y ago
    That's some good insight. Thanks! I hadn't considered that Android issue.
jtsiskin 6y ago
It’s already running on some of their embedded devices, such as google home. A capability based OS with a micro kernel sounds great to me. Things like the networking stack can run in user space, and be written in memory safe languages like Rust. An OS that “can’t” get viruses or be hacked sounds pretty desirable. Cynically it makes things like “jail breaking” a google home much more difficult.
- TACIXAT 6y ago
  >An OS that “can’t” get viruses or be hacked sounds pretty desirable. Cynically it makes things like “jail breaking” a google home much more difficult. I don’t think these claims hold. It is still written in a memory unsafe language, so exploitation is totally possible. As well, for malicious software you’re just looking for a process handing out high privilege handles.
  - bestorworse 6y ago
    > for malicious software you’re just looking for a process handing out high privilege handles In the end, that is true. But the thing is the way Fuchsia's implementation of the 'capability security model' is done. The capabilities a process (or, a 'component' in Fuchsia's model) use/consume are explicitly given to it. And this scheme is implemented in a way that is easy to see and account for where/from these capabilities are going to/from. An process can do nothing that is not provided by the capabilities it got during creation. Of course, components might be buggy/malicious and leak capabilities. But the security holes bottleneck in this capability routing scheme, so even with buggy/malicious components, it's much easier to audit and fix. And from an attacker perspective, it's much harder to reach a component given the routing path of capabilities that it's received.
    - TACIXAT 6y ago
      I expect it will be very much the same as drivers we have today, where you have some game anti-cheat rootkit that has a bug in it. In Fuschia's case it will be like that but the exploitation either gives you access to that driver's capabilities, or simply that driver is giving out handles with permissions insufficiently removed from them. It will be cool to see a full system audit of capabilities, but I don't think that analysis exists yet.
baybal2 6y ago
> why is Google developing it. They want to get a Linux free OS.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
dekhn 6y ago
the goal is to be a foundation for future embedded devices that doesn't have the many challenges associated with linux-based systems, specifically around security, isolation, and firmware updates while also defining a simple and straightfoward presentation model to app developers.
swiley 6y ago
Google thinks the GPL in the kernel is the problem with Android.

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?

by kace91 6y ago

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?

claydavisss 6y ago

an OS Google can control. Open source just like Go is open source - you are free to download and use it, but Google controls it.

bun_at_work 6y ago

I remember reading a couple years ago that the goal is IoT devices. It runs on the Zircon kernel, which is a true microkernel (as I remember, haven't been paying attention recently). This is pretty ideal for IoT, since manufacturers should be able to spin up only as much OS as they need on top of the Zircon kernel. Fuchsia specifically is looking to be a full-fledged OS, I think, for devices like Chromebooks or similar. I think they expect to get Fuchsia to a place where it can run Android apps natively, then put out an OS that can run native apps, Android apps, etc, all while being tied in to Google's services. This is definitely some speculation, but that's what I'm seeing so far.

cogman10 6y ago
It gives google the ability to thwart a major security problem that android has. That is, manufacturers choosing to drop support for a device. Because the important parts of Fuchsia are all controlled by google, it means they can theoretically keep devices running and up to date indefinitely. They can control the majority of the software while manufactures only need to supply their drivers. Manufacturers dropping driver support, while bad, isn't the end of the world. It's a much smaller attack vector than the whole kernel never getting updates.
- bun_at_work 6y ago
  That's some good insight. Thanks! I hadn't considered that Android issue.

jtsiskin 6y ago

It’s already running on some of their embedded devices, such as google home. A capability based OS with a micro kernel sounds great to me. Things like the networking stack can run in user space, and be written in memory safe languages like Rust. An OS that “can’t” get viruses or be hacked sounds pretty desirable. Cynically it makes things like “jail breaking” a google home much more difficult.

TACIXAT 6y ago
>An OS that “can’t” get viruses or be hacked sounds pretty desirable. Cynically it makes things like “jail breaking” a google home much more difficult. I don’t think these claims hold. It is still written in a memory unsafe language, so exploitation is totally possible. As well, for malicious software you’re just looking for a process handing out high privilege handles.
- bestorworse 6y ago
  > for malicious software you’re just looking for a process handing out high privilege handles In the end, that is true. But the thing is the way Fuchsia's implementation of the 'capability security model' is done. The capabilities a process (or, a 'component' in Fuchsia's model) use/consume are explicitly given to it. And this scheme is implemented in a way that is easy to see and account for where/from these capabilities are going to/from. An process can do nothing that is not provided by the capabilities it got during creation. Of course, components might be buggy/malicious and leak capabilities. But the security holes bottleneck in this capability routing scheme, so even with buggy/malicious components, it's much easier to audit and fix. And from an attacker perspective, it's much harder to reach a component given the routing path of capabilities that it's received.
  - TACIXAT 6y ago
    I expect it will be very much the same as drivers we have today, where you have some game anti-cheat rootkit that has a bug in it. In Fuschia's case it will be like that but the exploitation either gives you access to that driver's capabilities, or simply that driver is giving out handles with permissions insufficiently removed from them. It will be cool to see a full system audit of capabilities, but I don't think that analysis exists yet.

baybal2 6y ago

> why is Google developing it. They want to get a Linux free OS.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

dekhn 6y ago

the goal is to be a foundation for future embedded devices that doesn't have the many challenges associated with linux-based systems, specifically around security, isolation, and firmware updates while also defining a simple and straightfoward presentation model to app developers.

swiley 6y ago

Google thinks the GPL in the kernel is the problem with Android.