Google's Fuchsia Open-Source OS To Begin Accepting Community Contributions

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Google's Fuchsia Open-Source OS To Begin Accepting Community Contributions

Four years after Google began developing the "Fuchsia" operating system complete with its own kernel, Google is now becoming more open with Fuchsia development and also accepting community code contributions...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Google-Fuchsia-More-Open

[pal666]

it looks like google tried and failed to do it alone

[clapbr]

I hope no one actually does unpaid work for Google.

[M@GOid]

Google has a long list of failed products and projects. Make you wonder if they will manage to attract a significant community behind this.

[andre30correia]

never understand why this new kernel since they use and contribute to linux

[tildearrow]

Is de-standardization the way forward? Seriously?

1985: VIC, OCS, VIC-II, PPU, ANTIC+CTIA, CGA, EGA (none of them cross-platform)

2000: DirectX, OpenGL (with the latter working natively on every platform)

2020: DirectX 11, DirectX 12, OpenGL, Vulkan, Metal (neither of them are truly cross-platform either; not even Vulkan since it doesn't run on DirectX-only or Apple platforms without compatibility layers)

....

.....

1985: DOS, KERNAL, AmigaOS, System (Mac OS), Atari 8-bit OS (none of them compatible)

2000: Windows and Unix/Unix-like (Windows being the only one odd out)

2020: Windows, Unix/Unix-like, Android (it's not like you can 100% program it the Unix way), iOS (ditto) and now Fuchsia?!

[jaxa]

never understand why this new kernel since they use and contribute to linux

They want total control to reimagine Linux from the ground up, even if that means reinventing the wheel.

[mdedetrich]

They want total control to reimagine Linux from the ground up, even if that means reinventing the wheel.

Well there are a few problems that Google is wanting to solve with Fuschia and from what I read here is the summary of them

1. A microkerrnel like design where proprietary drivers can sit in userspace. A lot of smartphone drivers (particularly Wi-Fi) are closed source and this has caused a lot of issues with Linux's GPL, i.e. because of this phones cannot independently update Linux kernel from the drivers.
2. Zircon appears to be async to the core (i.e. a lot of syscalls are actually non blocking) and is designed to take advantage of multiple cores/threads much better in order to deliver a much more responsive UI. Think on the grounds of a modern day HaikuOS
3. Have a capability/security based system built right into the kernel (which I guess is similar to what you see currently with Android but applied to everything?)

I think that #1 is probably the biggest issue with Google, its just exasperating the problem of keeping phones up to date (its already hard enough for Google with the decentralized hardware nature of Android).

[stikonas]

Well there are a few problems that Google is wanting to solve with Fuschia and from what I read here is the summary of them

1. A microkerrnel like design where proprietary drivers can sit in userspace. A lot of smartphone drivers (particularly Wi-Fi) are closed source and this has caused a lot of issues with Linux's GPL, i.e. because of this phones cannot independently update Linux kernel from the drivers.
2. Zircon appears to be async to the core (i.e. a lot of syscalls are actually non blocking) and is designed to take advantage of multiple cores/threads much better in order to deliver a much more responsive UI. Think on the grounds of a modern day HaikuOS
3. Have a capability/security based system built right into the kernel (which I guess is similar to what you see currently with Android but applied to everything?)

I think that #1 is probably the biggest issue with Google, its just exasperating the problem of keeping phones up to date (its already hard enough for Google with the decentralized hardware nature of Android).

#1 should be solved by opening writing free/open source drivers instead of rewriting OS that allows proprietary drivers.

[elatllat]

Not enough rust for it to actualy prioritize security as they want. It would just end up with monthly RCEs just like android.