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Off topic but... What's the future of Fuchsia? Years ago it seemed like it would replace Android and ChromeOS but time passes and we haven't seen any results o

by pier25 3y ago

Off topic but... What's the future of Fuchsia? Years ago it seemed like it would replace Android and ChromeOS but time passes and we haven't seen any results other than the Nest hub running it.

flangola7 3y ago
What even is it? What does it do that existing operating systems don't?
- fendy3002 3y ago
  It isn't running in java IIRC
re-thc 3y ago
> Off topic but... What's the future of Fuchsia? To keep engineers that would otherwise leave Google for competitors engaged.
ehsankia 3y ago
I don't think it was ever meant to replace Android/ChromeOS, but rather the layer below (linux).
- pier25 3y ago
  IIRC it does have a GUI and application layers. There was a video a couple of years ago of a user logging in and launching Chrome.
  - pests 3y ago
    These are technically different projects. The kernel is named Zircon and the operating system is Fushia. The user interface and applications are written in Flutter which uses Dart.
jillesvangurp 3y ago
I've been assuming for several years now that they will never end up killing either Android or ChromeOS in favor of Fuchsia. The reasons aren't technical but business related. The business reason for this is that this would alienate the OEM ecosystem. The likes of Samsung want less Google influence, not more and they're really invested in Android. Without Samsung on board, Google's choice is letting them take over Android or keep control on their side. It's that simple. There are also various Chinese manufacturers that already cut loose from Google for legal reasons that are running Android forks. Amazon has its own fork. So, Google has their work cut out forcing that ecosystem in the direction of Fuchsia. With ChromeOS, they have a similar issue. Lots of OEMs and it's actually a relatively successful platform. IMHO they should push to merge the ChromeOS and Android ecosystems more. Fuchsia does not solve a problem any OEM has. It's Google's big not invented here syndrome. They started doing an OS because they had some technical concerns with Linux. Instead of working with the Linux community to address those concerns, they've been building their own OS for years now. They'll ultimately probably do the easy and obvious thing which is to write off the whole effort. At best a lot of the components (minus the kernel) might find their way into Android/ChromeOS and their UI frameworks (jetpack compose and flutter).
- pier25 3y ago
  Thanks that makes sense. But why keep investing into Fuchsia? By all accounts it's quite an expensive hobby.
  - jillesvangurp 3y ago
    Why indeed. Big companies being rational and efficient are not that common. My guess is that there are some ongoing internal differences of opinion on this that are causing Google to slowly strangle but not quite kill this effort. Clearly the camp that was going to steam roll Fuchsia through as the Android replacement seems to be no longer in charge. At least, I see no signs of that happening any time soon. It's a weird dynamic that big companies have where different camps are powerful enough to frustrate each other's roadmaps but not powerful enough to outright kill each other. Stronger leadership would be more decisive and act a lot sooner too. Google has no strong leadership is the only conclusion and there are probably more out of control teams like this. I've seen the same dynamic in Nokia fifteen years ago where different parts of the org tree were fighting over who got to deliver X where X was some important feature. The most extreme version of this that I saw was when our group in Nokia Research was working on a feature related to coupons and vouchers and started talking to different business units to see if there was any interest in this. We started making an inventory of different teams working on similar things. We stopped counting at seven. Most of these teams did not know of each other or if they did were working on it because those other teams were in the wrong part of the org tree and it was just easier for them to work around each other. I bet there's a lot of that happening in Google right now. At least they look similarly big and bloated to me.

by pier25 3y ago

Off topic but... What's the future of Fuchsia? Years ago it seemed like it would replace Android and ChromeOS but time passes and we haven't seen any results other than the Nest hub running it.

flangola7 3y ago

What even is it? What does it do that existing operating systems don't?

fendy3002 3y ago
It isn't running in java IIRC

re-thc 3y ago

> Off topic but... What's the future of Fuchsia? To keep engineers that would otherwise leave Google for competitors engaged.

ehsankia 3y ago

I don't think it was ever meant to replace Android/ChromeOS, but rather the layer below (linux).

pier25 3y ago
IIRC it does have a GUI and application layers. There was a video a couple of years ago of a user logging in and launching Chrome.
- pests 3y ago
  These are technically different projects. The kernel is named Zircon and the operating system is Fushia. The user interface and applications are written in Flutter which uses Dart.

jillesvangurp 3y ago

I've been assuming for several years now that they will never end up killing either Android or ChromeOS in favor of Fuchsia. The reasons aren't technical but business related. The business reason for this is that this would alienate the OEM ecosystem. The likes of Samsung want less Google influence, not more and they're really invested in Android. Without Samsung on board, Google's choice is letting them take over Android or keep control on their side. It's that simple. There are also various Chinese manufacturers that already cut loose from Google for legal reasons that are running Android forks. Amazon has its own fork. So, Google has their work cut out forcing that ecosystem in the direction of Fuchsia. With ChromeOS, they have a similar issue. Lots of OEMs and it's actually a relatively successful platform. IMHO they should push to merge the ChromeOS and Android ecosystems more. Fuchsia does not solve a problem any OEM has. It's Google's big not invented here syndrome. They started doing an OS because they had some technical concerns with Linux. Instead of working with the Linux community to address those concerns, they've been building their own OS for years now. They'll ultimately probably do the easy and obvious thing which is to write off the whole effort. At best a lot of the components (minus the kernel) might find their way into Android/ChromeOS and their UI frameworks (jetpack compose and flutter).

pier25 3y ago
Thanks that makes sense. But why keep investing into Fuchsia? By all accounts it's quite an expensive hobby.
- jillesvangurp 3y ago
  Why indeed. Big companies being rational and efficient are not that common. My guess is that there are some ongoing internal differences of opinion on this that are causing Google to slowly strangle but not quite kill this effort. Clearly the camp that was going to steam roll Fuchsia through as the Android replacement seems to be no longer in charge. At least, I see no signs of that happening any time soon. It's a weird dynamic that big companies have where different camps are powerful enough to frustrate each other's roadmaps but not powerful enough to outright kill each other. Stronger leadership would be more decisive and act a lot sooner too. Google has no strong leadership is the only conclusion and there are probably more out of control teams like this. I've seen the same dynamic in Nokia fifteen years ago where different parts of the org tree were fighting over who got to deliver X where X was some important feature. The most extreme version of this that I saw was when our group in Nokia Research was working on a feature related to coupons and vouchers and started talking to different business units to see if there was any interest in this. We started making an inventory of different teams working on similar things. We stopped counting at seven. Most of these teams did not know of each other or if they did were working on it because those other teams were in the wrong part of the org tree and it was just easier for them to work around each other. I bet there's a lot of that happening in Google right now. At least they look similarly big and bloated to me.