4 ms·

Is Fuchsia fake work?

olliej 4y ago
According to folk like this: yes. It does sadly look like fuchsia seems to have been a victim of google's culling of talented engineers :-/ (disclosure: I did work on fuchsia briefly and the engineers working on it were all incredibly talented and very hard working) Anything that isn't immediately profitable is fake work, anything that fails to work out means that it was also fake work.
- jfim 4y ago
  It's more that there doesn't seem to be any kind of synergy between Fuschia and Google's business of selling ads, hence the fake work label. If Google tried to launch a FM radio ad business and it flopped, it would be at least related to their core business.
  - scaramanga 4y ago
    Now we're just dunking on people who think the purpose of the economy is (ought to be) to connect idle hands with needed work? Instead, we're lamenting that a company should "at least be trying" to pump more sewage into the river we all drink from. What a sad state of affairs :)
  - olliej 4y ago
    The goal of fuchsia is/was to create a better platform for future products - a lot of engineering goes into securing the linux base of android which is not free. There was also talk about being "better at modern hardware", "lighter weight", etc ideas but I generally feel that claims like that from any software/platform are questionable: they're not really measurable, and what is "good" could easily be different in a generation or two of hardware/software changes. The more robust security basis for the platform is a much stronger claim, and remains true as hardware and software change around it. E.g. we can improve the security of a platform by adding CHERI say, and that improves the security of a linux+android based system, but fuchsia would also get those wins on top of the existing more secure basis - the gap may be reduced but fuchsia stays ahead. So the goal is to create a platform that is more profitable in the long term, so not "fake work". It would appear that Google decided that there has not been sufficient evidence of success to warrant any further investment, but that does not mean it is "fake work". Such a definition of "fake work" would mean that any project that you should never do or attempt anything if you do not have guaranteed success. Note: Google's business model is ads. Android exists for the purpose of selling ads. The long term goal of fuchsia under this model would be a cost reduction in the maintenance of some android style product (whether it would still be branded android shrug). That's the business argument for fuchsia, and it would appear that google has decided that it doesn't think the end result is likely to warrant the cost of getting there. I think that's a shame, and I feel bad for my former coworkers, but I can't say "companies should be required to continue developing projects forever, even if it appears they won't succeed in their goals" because that would also be dumb :-/
jimbob45 4y ago
I hope so because it’s shameful that they’re wasting all that work on vaporware. You ask people here and you get glares and condescending reminders that “Operating systems take a lot of time to develop, okay?”. Android took five years or less to develop. We’re going on seven years for Fuchsia at the very least, likely more. There’s just no excuse to have wasted all that engineering talent on nothing. They might as well be Aperture Science.
- mannyv 4y ago
  When you're playing with yourself it can take years to make a baby. In general, OS release 1.0 takes about 4 years. That's feature complete and ready for users, not necessarily production ready and stable.
- dietr1ch 4y ago
  > Android took five years or less to develop And it runs on a kernel that started development on 1991. Also, Fuchsia is already running in some devices, - https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/05/google-launches-its-third-major-operating-system-fuchsia/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/05/google-launches-its-...
Beaver117 4y ago
...Yes, they literally rewrote an OS kernel for no reason
- icrbow 4y ago
  No reason other than making a kernel with a sane security model? Like we have a bunch of those under each tree in a park...
  - __turbobrew__ 4y ago
    Fuchsia has nearly been 10 years in the making but has yet to make any meaningful impact. They probably could have spent a quarter or two with Yocto to create a stripped down linux for Nest devices and called it a day. Instead they had 400(!) full time staff pulling in $300k+ developing something which nobody wanted and has not had any meaningful impact. Maybe in 10 more years they will manage to replace Android…
- cowl 4y ago
  And they literally rewrote a Browser for no reason, And they literally rewrote a bunch of infrastructure for no reason. And they literally reqrote an operating System (Android) for no reason. Oh wait...
  - ladyanita22 4y ago
    Chrome never was a rewrite
indy 4y ago
Fuchsia has always had an element of "talent retention program" about it. (see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17569631 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17569631)

According to folk like this: yes. It does sadly look like fuchsia seems to have been a victim of google's culling of talented engineers :-/ (disclosure: I did work on fuchsia briefly and the engineers working on it were all incredibly talented and very hard working) Anything that isn't immediately profitable is fake work, anything that fails to work out means that it was also fake work.

jfim 4y ago
It's more that there doesn't seem to be any kind of synergy between Fuschia and Google's business of selling ads, hence the fake work label. If Google tried to launch a FM radio ad business and it flopped, it would be at least related to their core business.
- scaramanga 4y ago
  Now we're just dunking on people who think the purpose of the economy is (ought to be) to connect idle hands with needed work? Instead, we're lamenting that a company should "at least be trying" to pump more sewage into the river we all drink from. What a sad state of affairs :)
- olliej 4y ago
  The goal of fuchsia is/was to create a better platform for future products - a lot of engineering goes into securing the linux base of android which is not free. There was also talk about being "better at modern hardware", "lighter weight", etc ideas but I generally feel that claims like that from any software/platform are questionable: they're not really measurable, and what is "good" could easily be different in a generation or two of hardware/software changes. The more robust security basis for the platform is a much stronger claim, and remains true as hardware and software change around it. E.g. we can improve the security of a platform by adding CHERI say, and that improves the security of a linux+android based system, but fuchsia would also get those wins on top of the existing more secure basis - the gap may be reduced but fuchsia stays ahead. So the goal is to create a platform that is more profitable in the long term, so not "fake work". It would appear that Google decided that there has not been sufficient evidence of success to warrant any further investment, but that does not mean it is "fake work". Such a definition of "fake work" would mean that any project that you should never do or attempt anything if you do not have guaranteed success. Note: Google's business model is ads. Android exists for the purpose of selling ads. The long term goal of fuchsia under this model would be a cost reduction in the maintenance of some android style product (whether it would still be branded android shrug). That's the business argument for fuchsia, and it would appear that google has decided that it doesn't think the end result is likely to warrant the cost of getting there. I think that's a shame, and I feel bad for my former coworkers, but I can't say "companies should be required to continue developing projects forever, even if it appears they won't succeed in their goals" because that would also be dumb :-/

jimbob45 4y ago

I hope so because it’s shameful that they’re wasting all that work on vaporware. You ask people here and you get glares and condescending reminders that “Operating systems take a lot of time to develop, okay?”. Android took five years or less to develop. We’re going on seven years for Fuchsia at the very least, likely more. There’s just no excuse to have wasted all that engineering talent on nothing. They might as well be Aperture Science.

mannyv 4y ago
When you're playing with yourself it can take years to make a baby. In general, OS release 1.0 takes about 4 years. That's feature complete and ready for users, not necessarily production ready and stable.
dietr1ch 4y ago
> Android took five years or less to develop And it runs on a kernel that started development on 1991. Also, Fuchsia is already running in some devices, - https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/05/google-launches-its-third-major-operating-system-fuchsia/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/05/google-launches-its-...

Beaver117 4y ago

...Yes, they literally rewrote an OS kernel for no reason

icrbow 4y ago
No reason other than making a kernel with a sane security model? Like we have a bunch of those under each tree in a park...
- __turbobrew__ 4y ago
  Fuchsia has nearly been 10 years in the making but has yet to make any meaningful impact. They probably could have spent a quarter or two with Yocto to create a stripped down linux for Nest devices and called it a day. Instead they had 400(!) full time staff pulling in $300k+ developing something which nobody wanted and has not had any meaningful impact. Maybe in 10 more years they will manage to replace Android…
cowl 4y ago
And they literally rewrote a Browser for no reason, And they literally rewrote a bunch of infrastructure for no reason. And they literally reqrote an operating System (Android) for no reason. Oh wait...
- ladyanita22 4y ago
  Chrome never was a rewrite

indy 4y ago

Fuchsia has always had an element of "talent retention program" about it. (see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17569631 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17569631)