5 ms·

Fuchsia 2024 Roadmap

44 points by kaycebasques 3y ago

anonuser1234 3y ago
Any good use cases for Fuchsia over Linux?
- deaddodo 3y ago
  The goal isn't to supplant Linux as a commodity kernel, but instead as a microkernel for integrated mobile devices. E.g., as a platform OS, not a general one. So the short answer is "no, unless you use one of Google's hypothetical future post-Android devices".
  - treyd 3y ago
    Would Fuchsia supplant Android on mainstream smartphones or is it more intended for specialized devices like smart TVs and smart watches?
    - refulgentis 3y ago
      Any idea of that part was killed several years back, ensuing brain drain combined with firings makes it sort of a non-sequitor to even wonder. It is on life support already, and an obvious target for more Efficiencies™ should the 2020s turn rougher.
  - surajrmal 3y ago
    I'm not sure how you came to this conclusion, but that's not true. Well neither narratives are rather. There is no reason to believe fuchsia doesn't have a future anywhere Linux currently runs, but also, the goal isn't necessarily to supplant Linux.
- hollerith 3y ago
  Not if you need to run a mainstream web browser.
  - saidinesh5 3y ago
    For those who are confused about this statement, like me, Google started bringing Chrome/Chromium support to Fuchsia a few years ago. But, earlier this year, they officially cancelled those plans: https://9to5google.com/2024/01/15/google-is-no-longer-bringing-the-full-chrome-browser-to-fuchsia/ https://9to5google.com/2024/01/15/google-is-no-longer-bringi...
    - lukan 3y ago
      That really sounds like burying it. Google probably decided to focus all on AI? Might make sense for them, but it is a shame, there seemed to be good engineering behind it.
      - refulgentis 3y ago
        It's worse than that - imagine if you had a team focused on a pie in the sky AI-based UI that ran on Fuchsia, but over-funded that, and it went nowhere, so it was killed, and then all of a sudden an LLM came out and all the miraculous UI parts seemed possible, but you were stuck with poorly run Android? https://9to5google.com/2017/05/10/fuchsia-os-hands-on/ https://9to5google.com/2017/05/10/fuchsia-os-hands-on/
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
dinkleberg 3y ago
I haven’t been keeping up, is Fuchsia in use much? From their site I see mention of Google nest hub as using it, but that is it.
- loeg 3y ago
  No, almost nothing uses it.
- summerlight 3y ago
  I think they are struggling to find internal clients. It has on-boarded some customers using a customized Linux kernel but those are minor. ChromeOS was supposed to be the first big client but this effort is reportedly now deprioritized.
saidinesh5 3y ago
> Fuchsia to start providing a stable driver application binary interface (ABI) for at least six months for downstream products that use drivers compiled through the SDK. This confirms the platform's commitment to delivering reliable and long-lasting driver support. 6 months counts as "long-lasting" these days?
- geodel 3y ago
  In Google Universe yes.
- laweijfmvo 3y ago
  Wasn't this one of the key complaints with Linux that drove the creation of Fuchsia? Hopefully they're targeting more than 6 months eventually!
  - saidinesh5 3y ago
    Yup, I thought so too. I mean 6 months is not even long enough to be development time for 1 major version of Android... They also cancelled plans to bring / maintain Chrome on Fuchsia this year. So not sure what their plans are with this OS anymore.
    - refulgentis 3y ago
      The team has been absolutely decimated and its essentially abandonware to Google at this point (i.e. runs on the Nest Hub ghosts ships). The long term story sold to the young and fresh-faced, you can kind of smell through the roadmap, RISC-V.
  - surajrmal 3y ago
    Baby steps. Committing to very long term horizons without sufficiently investing in your ability to uphold the necessary guarantees is challenging. Done poorly, we would either be unable to continue to evolve the platform or end up breaking things accidentally.
- summerlight 3y ago
olliej 3y ago
I worked on fuchsia for a while and so much of it is really interesting, and many of the people I was working with were incredibly smart, but it never really felt like Google as a whole really cared about it - there was the core kernel and OS that was designed sensibly and practically but a lot of the higher level parts of the system seemed to be used by people as a experimental playground at the cost of practical considerations. It's a shame that Google & I were not a good match because I really enjoyed and valued the experience of working with the people on the teams I worked on/with.
- canada_dry 3y ago
  > never really felt like Google as a whole really cared about it I mean, their track record for products they initially cared about isn't great... so ya, it doesn't bode well for this one.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
intexpress 3y ago
Most of the roadmap is about Starnix. Starnix started serious development around late 2022 and is a way for Fuchsia to pretend to be Linux and run Linux programs without recompilation or modification. It is a pivot for the Fuchsia project, essentially giving up on the idea that most programs would be (re)written for Fuchsia See https://fuchsia.dev/fuchsia-src/contribute/governance/rfcs/0082_starnix https://fuchsia.dev/fuchsia-src/contribute/governance/rfcs/0...
- surajrmal 3y ago
  It's 6 out of 18 bullets and arguably not all bullets are of equal size in terms of work. The starnix ones seem to be broken out to a more granular level. I'm not sure it was ever a goal for all software to be written natively for fuchsia. Fuchsia only supports c++ in its sdk, which greatly limits the amount of software which can target it.
  - intexpress 3y ago
    Starnix is clearly the focus now esp. if you focus on the platform goals and ignore the devex goals. Check out the previous roadmaps where Starnix was only mentioned once or not at all. Aside: the 2024 roadmap also has way more devex goals than previous roadmaps, so it looks like devex in general is also a focus now https://fuchsia.dev/fuchsia-src/contribute/roadmap https://fuchsia.dev/fuchsia-src/contribute/roadmap
poisonborz 3y ago
Reading anything about this project I always wonder if and how we ever get a completely new mainstream operating system.

44 points by kaycebasques 3y ago

anonuser1234 3y ago

Any good use cases for Fuchsia over Linux?

deaddodo 3y ago
The goal isn't to supplant Linux as a commodity kernel, but instead as a microkernel for integrated mobile devices. E.g., as a platform OS, not a general one. So the short answer is "no, unless you use one of Google's hypothetical future post-Android devices".
- treyd 3y ago
  Would Fuchsia supplant Android on mainstream smartphones or is it more intended for specialized devices like smart TVs and smart watches?
  - refulgentis 3y ago
    Any idea of that part was killed several years back, ensuing brain drain combined with firings makes it sort of a non-sequitor to even wonder. It is on life support already, and an obvious target for more Efficiencies™ should the 2020s turn rougher.
- surajrmal 3y ago
  I'm not sure how you came to this conclusion, but that's not true. Well neither narratives are rather. There is no reason to believe fuchsia doesn't have a future anywhere Linux currently runs, but also, the goal isn't necessarily to supplant Linux.
hollerith 3y ago
Not if you need to run a mainstream web browser.
- saidinesh5 3y ago
  For those who are confused about this statement, like me, Google started bringing Chrome/Chromium support to Fuchsia a few years ago. But, earlier this year, they officially cancelled those plans: https://9to5google.com/2024/01/15/google-is-no-longer-bringing-the-full-chrome-browser-to-fuchsia/ https://9to5google.com/2024/01/15/google-is-no-longer-bringi...
  - lukan 3y ago
    That really sounds like burying it. Google probably decided to focus all on AI? Might make sense for them, but it is a shame, there seemed to be good engineering behind it.
    - refulgentis 3y ago
      It's worse than that - imagine if you had a team focused on a pie in the sky AI-based UI that ran on Fuchsia, but over-funded that, and it went nowhere, so it was killed, and then all of a sudden an LLM came out and all the miraculous UI parts seemed possible, but you were stuck with poorly run Android? https://9to5google.com/2017/05/10/fuchsia-os-hands-on/ https://9to5google.com/2017/05/10/fuchsia-os-hands-on/
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

dinkleberg 3y ago

I haven’t been keeping up, is Fuchsia in use much? From their site I see mention of Google nest hub as using it, but that is it.

loeg 3y ago
No, almost nothing uses it.
summerlight 3y ago
I think they are struggling to find internal clients. It has on-boarded some customers using a customized Linux kernel but those are minor. ChromeOS was supposed to be the first big client but this effort is reportedly now deprioritized.

saidinesh5 3y ago

> Fuchsia to start providing a stable driver application binary interface (ABI) for at least six months for downstream products that use drivers compiled through the SDK. This confirms the platform's commitment to delivering reliable and long-lasting driver support. 6 months counts as "long-lasting" these days?

geodel 3y ago
In Google Universe yes.
laweijfmvo 3y ago
Wasn't this one of the key complaints with Linux that drove the creation of Fuchsia? Hopefully they're targeting more than 6 months eventually!
- saidinesh5 3y ago
  Yup, I thought so too. I mean 6 months is not even long enough to be development time for 1 major version of Android... They also cancelled plans to bring / maintain Chrome on Fuchsia this year. So not sure what their plans are with this OS anymore.
  - refulgentis 3y ago
    The team has been absolutely decimated and its essentially abandonware to Google at this point (i.e. runs on the Nest Hub ghosts ships). The long term story sold to the young and fresh-faced, you can kind of smell through the roadmap, RISC-V.
- surajrmal 3y ago
  Baby steps. Committing to very long term horizons without sufficiently investing in your ability to uphold the necessary guarantees is challenging. Done poorly, we would either be unable to continue to evolve the platform or end up breaking things accidentally.
summerlight 3y ago

olliej 3y ago

I worked on fuchsia for a while and so much of it is really interesting, and many of the people I was working with were incredibly smart, but it never really felt like Google as a whole really cared about it - there was the core kernel and OS that was designed sensibly and practically but a lot of the higher level parts of the system seemed to be used by people as a experimental playground at the cost of practical considerations. It's a shame that Google & I were not a good match because I really enjoyed and valued the experience of working with the people on the teams I worked on/with.

canada_dry 3y ago
> never really felt like Google as a whole really cared about it I mean, their track record for products they initially cared about isn't great... so ya, it doesn't bode well for this one.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

intexpress 3y ago

Most of the roadmap is about Starnix. Starnix started serious development around late 2022 and is a way for Fuchsia to pretend to be Linux and run Linux programs without recompilation or modification. It is a pivot for the Fuchsia project, essentially giving up on the idea that most programs would be (re)written for Fuchsia See https://fuchsia.dev/fuchsia-src/contribute/governance/rfcs/0082_starnix https://fuchsia.dev/fuchsia-src/contribute/governance/rfcs/0...

surajrmal 3y ago
It's 6 out of 18 bullets and arguably not all bullets are of equal size in terms of work. The starnix ones seem to be broken out to a more granular level. I'm not sure it was ever a goal for all software to be written natively for fuchsia. Fuchsia only supports c++ in its sdk, which greatly limits the amount of software which can target it.
- intexpress 3y ago
  Starnix is clearly the focus now esp. if you focus on the platform goals and ignore the devex goals. Check out the previous roadmaps where Starnix was only mentioned once or not at all. Aside: the 2024 roadmap also has way more devex goals than previous roadmaps, so it looks like devex in general is also a focus now https://fuchsia.dev/fuchsia-src/contribute/roadmap https://fuchsia.dev/fuchsia-src/contribute/roadmap

poisonborz 3y ago

Reading anything about this project I always wonder if and how we ever get a completely new mainstream operating system.