11 ms·

Google has been investing in Fuschia for years now. What's their end goal with it?

by sidcool 5y ago

danuker 5y ago
My shot in the dark: embrace, extend, and extinguish Linux.
- ahalam 5y ago
  Google has a reputation of extinguishing its own projects. So who knows how long their fascination w/ Fuchsia will last.
  - sobkas 5y ago
    Allure of flushing down the toilet GPL software from their stack is just too high for them, to just walk away from it.
  - cryptos 5y ago
    At least it wouldn't hurt to always have some flowers around for the next Google project entering the Google Graveyard ;-) (I don't expect that Fuchsia would end there any time soon.)
- WithinReason 5y ago
  I thought Fuschia wasn't Linux
  - danuker 5y ago
    It's not, but it can run Linux binaries. https://www.osnews.com/story/133013/fuchsia-gets-support-for-running-unmodified-linux-programs/ https://www.osnews.com/story/133013/fuchsia-gets-support-for...
  - DoingIsLearning 5y ago
    In theory if Fuschia fulfills it's purpose, google could have Android sit on top of Fuschia as opposed to a Linux Kernel. This would give them far more control over the direction of the OS, far more control over millions of users, and allow far less tinkering by android users.
    - liotier 5y ago
      While Android users still tinker within their steadily shrinking degrees of freedom, their desire for software freedom has an escape route within the Android world. But what if Google succeeds in using Fuschia to lock down the consumer mobile ecosystem ? With nowhere left to go, won't users focus on some new space entirely outside of Google's reach instead of just fleeing Google around Android ?
- purpleidea 5y ago
  One of the primary goals is to have a non-copyleft license so they can do more proprietary aspects without being forced to give back to the OS and community that made their company.
  - lucasyvas 5y ago
    It is their right, but I share your sentiment.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
- ilaksh 5y ago
  I think it's more about moving on from Android.
- criddell 5y ago
  My shot in the dark: try to keep up with Apple. They are never going to get Apple-levels of performance per watt from their current hardware and software choices.
- dralley 5y ago
  There's no "extend" here. It's just "replace".
javchz 5y ago
Linux it's great, but it's far from perfect for all scenarios where could be bloated (think IoT, like Google home assistant). In those cases micro kernels like fushia, or GNU Mach make sense.
- varjag 5y ago
  Can't see where you save with microkernel for embedded systems. You get the same as pre-configured monokernel plus the IPC overhead.
  - pjmlp 5y ago
    QNX, vxWorks, INTEGRITY,...
    - varjag 5y ago
      That doesn't address my point. Do you really appreciably save on binary footprint simply by using QNX versus trimmed down Linux kernel build?
      - pjmlp 5y ago
        You mean the binary footprint of a type 1 hypervisor that Linux requires when deployed in the same high integrity computing scenarios that QNX is usually used for?
        varjag 5y ago
        The use case suggested by the GP was IoT/Home Assistant scenarios. So no, I absolutely do not mean that.
    - yakubin 5y ago
      While QNX is mentioned, does anyone know of any materials detailing the implementation of MX tables in QNX? I've stumbled upon a brief synopsis[1] of what they do, but it lacked implementation details (such as: do the entries need to be aligned on page boundaries? how many copies are made at the end? etc. etc.). [1]: <https://cseweb.ucsd.edu/~voelker/cse221/papers/qnx-paper92.pdf https://cseweb.ucsd.edu/~voelker/cse221/papers/qnx-paper92.p...>
dvh 5y ago
Cancel it.
PoignardAzur 5y ago
Well, they say it's not intended to be an Android replacement, but I'm persuaded it's intended to be an Android replacement. The main advantages over Linux are a clean room design, better security-by-design (having a microkernel means the attack surface is way smaller, capabilities means sandboxing-as-a-security-mechanism becomes possible), and more control over the project. Honestly, I think the other commenters are being way too cynical about this. If this project gains traction, even if Google goes evil with it, forks and community distributions could still happen like they do for Linux, and be immensely beneficial. The sandboxing alone is a huge benefit.
- kllrnohj 5y ago
  Android already has a sandboxing-first design. Every app runs in its own sandbox done via different Linux users. It's a bit crude to use a different user per application, but it's effective & robust. Android is also pretty unapologetically POSIX/Linux and doesn't shy away from exposing that to applications (eg https://developer.android.com/reference/android/system/Os https://developer.android.com/reference/android/system/Os ). So I don't think Fuchsia would replace the Linux kernel in Android. It'd have to be far more rewarding a migration to justify the massive ecosystem breakages that would result (for both apps & OEMS) Windows XP proved you can do it, but that at least came with a massive (real world) improvement to things like security & stability that were appreciable upgrades to end users.
  - 2OEH8eoCRo0 5y ago
    > It's a bit crude to use a different user per application, but it's effective & robust. This is how I run services on my home server. Plex runs in a rootless container under user plex for example.
  - hollerith 5y ago
    IMHO Fuchsia will be a massive (real world) improvement over Linux in security. Also, 5 or 7 years from now, on which OS will Chrome or Chromium run better? Fuchsia or Linux? For the past 12 months, I've been running Chrome "on Wayland" (without XWayland in between) and although it is definitely usable, there are many small bugs some of which has existed the entire 12 months. (And will Firefox even be maintained 5 to 7 years from now?)
phendrenad2 5y ago
My first theory is they started it back when the Oracle lawsuit was happening over API copyrightability. They were probably worried that some Unix copyright troll would try to sue them, so having a backup OS was a good research project. Now it's just a make-work project to keep smart engineers from going to the competition. My second theory is that it exists as leverage, to scare the Linux kernel maintainers into thinking that they could lose their biggest userbase (Android) and make them more compliant.
- steelframe 5y ago
  > scare the Linux kernel maintainers into thinking that they could lose their biggest userbase (Android) and make them more compliant. Not so sure about that. It's not like any of them collect royalties. If anything it just adds to their maintenance workload.
  - phendrenad2 5y ago
    It's my belief that open-source maintainers usually become attached to the fame and importance they get, and they prefer to see the number of people using their project go up not down.
cmrdporcupine 5y ago
When I was there I was baffled by its sudden rise and the support it seemed to have from senior mgmt. My impression when it was announced was it started as a really neat personal project by some long-time OS development nerds (I mean that in a good way) that then escaped the gates and then it became a hammer in search of nails. It ended up eating the project I was on, and was many many years late in the process of doing so, breaking schedule promise after schedule promise. I kept waiting for management to put a lid on it, but they seemed to have infinite headcount and budget, and patience from mgmt to support their mission to rewrite the world while we struggled to get time and resources to maintain the codebase we already had which was shipped as a profitable product and sitting in millions of people's homes with good reviews. Google has OS politics dysfunction... especially in hardware devices where there are almost a half dozen Linux distributions fighting it out for marketshare. Fuchsia just added to that craziness.
- jstummbillig 5y ago
  Can you steel man the case for Fuchsia? What's the optimistic result that justifies this (apparently rather expensive) bet?
  - cmrdporcupine 5y ago
    The drivers situation for embedded Linux SoCs is awful. Fuchsia aims to fix that. Security model is better. Licensing I guess is easier to deal with. The OS structure is explicitly modeled for the kind of consumer hardware projects in question instead of, y'know, a PDP-11. None of this changes that the rollout for these things could be done incrementally in parallel with the existing Linux based platforms, with an eye to produce shared components whenever possible instead of rewriting the world. The Fuchsia folks were notorious for their obsession with purity of essence, and because they had the headcount and $$, they just did what they wanted.
    - cogman10 5y ago
      Fuchsia's driver handling is superior to what you get with linux. Because pretty much everything is pushed into userspace it makes it dead simple to keep a driver going forever. Were I to guess, the prime motivation for Fuchsia would be to have a phone or IoT device which could regularly receive kernel updates without needing hardware vendor interaction. That's the biggest sore spot for linux. (not that I think Fuchsia's kernel would require a bunch of updates due to how simple it is). This is an outsider's perspective. Definitely a big expensive project that reminds me of other big expensive google projects which seem DoA.
Findecanor 5y ago
I believe the long-term goal is for it to replace Linux as the kernel in Android. The technical reason, I'd say is that the access control model in Android is a kludge on top of the Linux kernel, and it is more difficult to sandbox apps. Fuchsia was made to support Android's model, and in a capability-oriented OS you get sandboxing by default. A political reason is to not be dependent on Linux, but I'm sure that other people have opinions about there being more.
Tozen 5y ago
I agree with the sentiments expressed by various others. 1) They can get rid of needing to use Linux, whenever convenient. 2) Possibly even replace Android too, if feasible or eventually. 3) Way more control, to make sure open-source "politics" doesn't interfere with their money, business goals, and exploitation of users info.
0des 5y ago
To replace ChromeOS
squarefoot 5y ago
> What's their end goal with it Move away from the Linux kernel, because it limits their freedom of restricting users freedoms.
qbasic_forever 5y ago
Employee retention. One of the rumors floated early on was that it was just to keep some senior engineers happy and at the company.
- pradn 5y ago
  This argument never makes sense. Why keep senior engineers if they aren't contributing to the business?
  - vbezhenar 5y ago
    That keeps them from contributing to your competitors, i.e. against your business.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - dennyabraham 5y ago
    It's defensive. High salaries and plum projects keep good engineers from building your successor.
  - salawat 5y ago
    Brain drain. Twiddle for me, not for them. Don't become one f them either.
  - scintill76 5y ago
    I presume you make a deal where they also have to put time in on business-critical projects that you want their skill for.
tenebrisalietum 5y ago
They want an OS with a stable kernel ABI so they don't have to bug device manufacturers (non-FOSS friendly ones like Broadcom and Qualcomm) for source code, or updated binary-only Linux drivers every time there is an update to Linux.
hackerbrother 5y ago
Possibly replace the Linux kernel!
api 5y ago
I find myself asking cynical things like "how will Fuchsia make it easier for them to spy on their users?"
- fartcannon 5y ago
  That's not cynicism, that's realism. Don't let the PR monkeys convince you that reality is wrong.
- brimble 5y ago
  Assuming there's a grand strategy behind this at all, it feels like more of a "steer the industry" play than a "spy even more" play. If I'm right, the ones who should be worried are Red Hat(/IBM) and Ubuntu. Maybe Amazon, depending on what exactly Google's thinking and how much they weaponize the ability to refrain from open sourcing some of the code.
zamalek 5y ago
It's already on the Nest Hub Max, so they are already in the vicinity of end-goal.

Google has been investing in Fuschia for years now. What's their end goal with it?

danuker 5y ago

My shot in the dark: embrace, extend, and extinguish Linux.

ahalam 5y ago
Google has a reputation of extinguishing its own projects. So who knows how long their fascination w/ Fuchsia will last.
- sobkas 5y ago
  Allure of flushing down the toilet GPL software from their stack is just too high for them, to just walk away from it.
- cryptos 5y ago
  At least it wouldn't hurt to always have some flowers around for the next Google project entering the Google Graveyard ;-) (I don't expect that Fuchsia would end there any time soon.)
WithinReason 5y ago
I thought Fuschia wasn't Linux
- danuker 5y ago
  It's not, but it can run Linux binaries. https://www.osnews.com/story/133013/fuchsia-gets-support-for-running-unmodified-linux-programs/ https://www.osnews.com/story/133013/fuchsia-gets-support-for...
- DoingIsLearning 5y ago
  In theory if Fuschia fulfills it's purpose, google could have Android sit on top of Fuschia as opposed to a Linux Kernel. This would give them far more control over the direction of the OS, far more control over millions of users, and allow far less tinkering by android users.
  - liotier 5y ago
    While Android users still tinker within their steadily shrinking degrees of freedom, their desire for software freedom has an escape route within the Android world. But what if Google succeeds in using Fuschia to lock down the consumer mobile ecosystem ? With nowhere left to go, won't users focus on some new space entirely outside of Google's reach instead of just fleeing Google around Android ?
purpleidea 5y ago
One of the primary goals is to have a non-copyleft license so they can do more proprietary aspects without being forced to give back to the OS and community that made their company.
- lucasyvas 5y ago
  It is their right, but I share your sentiment.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
ilaksh 5y ago
I think it's more about moving on from Android.
criddell 5y ago
My shot in the dark: try to keep up with Apple. They are never going to get Apple-levels of performance per watt from their current hardware and software choices.
dralley 5y ago
There's no "extend" here. It's just "replace".

javchz 5y ago

Linux it's great, but it's far from perfect for all scenarios where could be bloated (think IoT, like Google home assistant). In those cases micro kernels like fushia, or GNU Mach make sense.

varjag 5y ago
Can't see where you save with microkernel for embedded systems. You get the same as pre-configured monokernel plus the IPC overhead.
- pjmlp 5y ago
  QNX, vxWorks, INTEGRITY,...
  - varjag 5y ago
    That doesn't address my point. Do you really appreciably save on binary footprint simply by using QNX versus trimmed down Linux kernel build?
    - pjmlp 5y ago
      You mean the binary footprint of a type 1 hypervisor that Linux requires when deployed in the same high integrity computing scenarios that QNX is usually used for?
      - varjag 5y ago
        The use case suggested by the GP was IoT/Home Assistant scenarios. So no, I absolutely do not mean that.
  - yakubin 5y ago
    While QNX is mentioned, does anyone know of any materials detailing the implementation of MX tables in QNX? I've stumbled upon a brief synopsis[1] of what they do, but it lacked implementation details (such as: do the entries need to be aligned on page boundaries? how many copies are made at the end? etc. etc.). [1]: <https://cseweb.ucsd.edu/~voelker/cse221/papers/qnx-paper92.pdf https://cseweb.ucsd.edu/~voelker/cse221/papers/qnx-paper92.p...>

dvh 5y ago

Cancel it.

PoignardAzur 5y ago

Well, they say it's not intended to be an Android replacement, but I'm persuaded it's intended to be an Android replacement. The main advantages over Linux are a clean room design, better security-by-design (having a microkernel means the attack surface is way smaller, capabilities means sandboxing-as-a-security-mechanism becomes possible), and more control over the project. Honestly, I think the other commenters are being way too cynical about this. If this project gains traction, even if Google goes evil with it, forks and community distributions could still happen like they do for Linux, and be immensely beneficial. The sandboxing alone is a huge benefit.

kllrnohj 5y ago
Android already has a sandboxing-first design. Every app runs in its own sandbox done via different Linux users. It's a bit crude to use a different user per application, but it's effective & robust. Android is also pretty unapologetically POSIX/Linux and doesn't shy away from exposing that to applications (eg https://developer.android.com/reference/android/system/Os https://developer.android.com/reference/android/system/Os ). So I don't think Fuchsia would replace the Linux kernel in Android. It'd have to be far more rewarding a migration to justify the massive ecosystem breakages that would result (for both apps & OEMS) Windows XP proved you can do it, but that at least came with a massive (real world) improvement to things like security & stability that were appreciable upgrades to end users.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 5y ago
  > It's a bit crude to use a different user per application, but it's effective & robust. This is how I run services on my home server. Plex runs in a rootless container under user plex for example.
- hollerith 5y ago
  IMHO Fuchsia will be a massive (real world) improvement over Linux in security. Also, 5 or 7 years from now, on which OS will Chrome or Chromium run better? Fuchsia or Linux? For the past 12 months, I've been running Chrome "on Wayland" (without XWayland in between) and although it is definitely usable, there are many small bugs some of which has existed the entire 12 months. (And will Firefox even be maintained 5 to 7 years from now?)

phendrenad2 5y ago

My first theory is they started it back when the Oracle lawsuit was happening over API copyrightability. They were probably worried that some Unix copyright troll would try to sue them, so having a backup OS was a good research project. Now it's just a make-work project to keep smart engineers from going to the competition. My second theory is that it exists as leverage, to scare the Linux kernel maintainers into thinking that they could lose their biggest userbase (Android) and make them more compliant.

steelframe 5y ago
> scare the Linux kernel maintainers into thinking that they could lose their biggest userbase (Android) and make them more compliant. Not so sure about that. It's not like any of them collect royalties. If anything it just adds to their maintenance workload.
- phendrenad2 5y ago
  It's my belief that open-source maintainers usually become attached to the fame and importance they get, and they prefer to see the number of people using their project go up not down.

cmrdporcupine 5y ago

When I was there I was baffled by its sudden rise and the support it seemed to have from senior mgmt. My impression when it was announced was it started as a really neat personal project by some long-time OS development nerds (I mean that in a good way) that then escaped the gates and then it became a hammer in search of nails. It ended up eating the project I was on, and was many many years late in the process of doing so, breaking schedule promise after schedule promise. I kept waiting for management to put a lid on it, but they seemed to have infinite headcount and budget, and patience from mgmt to support their mission to rewrite the world while we struggled to get time and resources to maintain the codebase we already had which was shipped as a profitable product and sitting in millions of people's homes with good reviews. Google has OS politics dysfunction... especially in hardware devices where there are almost a half dozen Linux distributions fighting it out for marketshare. Fuchsia just added to that craziness.

jstummbillig 5y ago
Can you steel man the case for Fuchsia? What's the optimistic result that justifies this (apparently rather expensive) bet?
- cmrdporcupine 5y ago
  The drivers situation for embedded Linux SoCs is awful. Fuchsia aims to fix that. Security model is better. Licensing I guess is easier to deal with. The OS structure is explicitly modeled for the kind of consumer hardware projects in question instead of, y'know, a PDP-11. None of this changes that the rollout for these things could be done incrementally in parallel with the existing Linux based platforms, with an eye to produce shared components whenever possible instead of rewriting the world. The Fuchsia folks were notorious for their obsession with purity of essence, and because they had the headcount and $$, they just did what they wanted.
  - cogman10 5y ago
    Fuchsia's driver handling is superior to what you get with linux. Because pretty much everything is pushed into userspace it makes it dead simple to keep a driver going forever. Were I to guess, the prime motivation for Fuchsia would be to have a phone or IoT device which could regularly receive kernel updates without needing hardware vendor interaction. That's the biggest sore spot for linux. (not that I think Fuchsia's kernel would require a bunch of updates due to how simple it is). This is an outsider's perspective. Definitely a big expensive project that reminds me of other big expensive google projects which seem DoA.

Findecanor 5y ago

I believe the long-term goal is for it to replace Linux as the kernel in Android. The technical reason, I'd say is that the access control model in Android is a kludge on top of the Linux kernel, and it is more difficult to sandbox apps. Fuchsia was made to support Android's model, and in a capability-oriented OS you get sandboxing by default. A political reason is to not be dependent on Linux, but I'm sure that other people have opinions about there being more.

Tozen 5y ago

I agree with the sentiments expressed by various others. 1) They can get rid of needing to use Linux, whenever convenient. 2) Possibly even replace Android too, if feasible or eventually. 3) Way more control, to make sure open-source "politics" doesn't interfere with their money, business goals, and exploitation of users info.

0des 5y ago

To replace ChromeOS

squarefoot 5y ago

> What's their end goal with it Move away from the Linux kernel, because it limits their freedom of restricting users freedoms.

qbasic_forever 5y ago

Employee retention. One of the rumors floated early on was that it was just to keep some senior engineers happy and at the company.

pradn 5y ago
This argument never makes sense. Why keep senior engineers if they aren't contributing to the business?
- vbezhenar 5y ago
  That keeps them from contributing to your competitors, i.e. against your business.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- dennyabraham 5y ago
  It's defensive. High salaries and plum projects keep good engineers from building your successor.
- salawat 5y ago
  Brain drain. Twiddle for me, not for them. Don't become one f them either.
- scintill76 5y ago
  I presume you make a deal where they also have to put time in on business-critical projects that you want their skill for.

tenebrisalietum 5y ago

They want an OS with a stable kernel ABI so they don't have to bug device manufacturers (non-FOSS friendly ones like Broadcom and Qualcomm) for source code, or updated binary-only Linux drivers every time there is an update to Linux.

hackerbrother 5y ago

Possibly replace the Linux kernel!

api 5y ago

I find myself asking cynical things like "how will Fuchsia make it easier for them to spy on their users?"

fartcannon 5y ago
That's not cynicism, that's realism. Don't let the PR monkeys convince you that reality is wrong.
brimble 5y ago
Assuming there's a grand strategy behind this at all, it feels like more of a "steer the industry" play than a "spy even more" play. If I'm right, the ones who should be worried are Red Hat(/IBM) and Ubuntu. Maybe Amazon, depending on what exactly Google's thinking and how much they weaponize the ability to refrain from open sourcing some of the code.

zamalek 5y ago

It's already on the Nest Hub Max, so they are already in the vicinity of end-goal.