Facebook is Building an Operating System So it Can Ditch Android (techcrunch.com) 141
Facebook doesn't want its hardware like Oculus and Portal to be at the mercy of Google because they rely on its Android operating system. From a report: That's why Facebook has tasked a co-author of Microsoft's Windows NT named Mark Lucovsky with building the social network an operating system from scratch, according the The Information's Alex Heath. "We really want to make sure the next generation has space for us," says Facebook's VP of hardware Andrew 'Boz' Bosworth. "We don't think we can trust the marketplace or competitors to ensure that's the case. And so we're gonna do it ourselves."
By moving to its own OS, Facebook could have more freedom to bake social interaction -- and hopefully privacy -- deeper into its devices. It could also prevent a disagreement between Google and Facebook from derailing the roadmaps of Oculus, Portal, or future gadgets. One added bonus of moving to a Facebook-owned operating system? It could make it tougher to force Facebook to spin out some of its acquisitions, especially if Facebook goes with Instagram branding for its future augmented reality glasses.
By moving to its own OS, Facebook could have more freedom to bake social interaction -- and hopefully privacy -- deeper into its devices. It could also prevent a disagreement between Google and Facebook from derailing the roadmaps of Oculus, Portal, or future gadgets. One added bonus of moving to a Facebook-owned operating system? It could make it tougher to force Facebook to spin out some of its acquisitions, especially if Facebook goes with Instagram branding for its future augmented reality glasses.
Could replace Android on phones... (Score:4, Insightful)
I do not see it as wholly unlikely, that Facebook if they built a halfway decent OS could replace Android on a lot of non-apple devices.
It would be interesting to have a viable third party contender in a way that Windows Mobile never was...
Re:Could replace Android on phones... (Score:5, Funny)
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https://www.cnet.com/news/here... [cnet.com]
Re:Could replace Android on phones... (Score:5, Funny)
I do not see it as wholly unlikely, that Facebook if they built a halfway decent OS could replace Android on a lot of non-apple devices.
And that OS would be:
* non spying
* would support third party web browsers and email clients
* would support "other social networks", like twitter (if you call it a social network)
????????
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The lead in for this story is as silly as. Facebook wants to copy M$ and build it's privacy invasion into the Operating System to hide it from the public, whilst calling out internet companies for invading everyone's privacy. That is the only reason, to ensure you can not opt out of privacy invasion and any attempt you make is reset within the OS.
Why is internet explorer faster to load on Windows because part of it is built right into the OS, so even when you are not online, your fucking OS is and reportin
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There's not a chance in hell that anything made by Facebook will be bought by me, or permitted on any network I have the slightest influence over. Facebook tracking baked into the OS? Fuck that sideways with a bandsaw.
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"and hopefully privacy" (Score:5, Informative)
"and hopefully privacy" ... are you joking !? this is facebook we're talking about here...
Re:"and hopefully privacy" (Score:5, Insightful)
"and hopefully privacy" ... are you joking !? this is facebook we're talking about here...
This this this this this. The post reads like it was written by Zuck himself. "We just want to help people connect..."
Re:"and hopefully privacy" (Score:5, Funny)
Want to hear a joke?
My wive asked me lately why I would only talk in whisper to her in our house.
I told her: "I believe Zuckerberg is listening in!!"
My wife chuckled. ...
Siri chucked.
Alexia chuckled.
Google chuckled
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If I had to choose, I would prefer the Chinese government spying on me than Facebook, Google or Microsoft.
Fortunately I run Manjaro and Bliss, and I don't have to make that choice.
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I'm dubious enough about Google, but I absolutely would not trust anything from Facebook. A blank sheet of paper, impregnated with saltpeter and with a built in match, which had a Facebook logo would inspire more questions about "how are they spying on me" than it would thoughts of "I can write something private on that".
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Also, mics + 6 cameras (we have to capture *everything*, from all angles), 24/7/365. Contacts and other private data, calls, video, screen streaming directly to Zuck whenever on, all to "help people connect". Please.
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Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
With the one who made Windows NT ! (Score:2)
You're kiding me right ? It isn't april first today !
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I don't know, I think it is par for the course. It will help Facebook build obnoxiousness in from the get-go instead of bolting it on later.
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The real problem with "NT" is its popularity.
Shit software is written for it, and due to its massive user base- particularly, it's massive desktop computing user base- it's a ripe target for attacks.
Where you look at places where the Linux kernel is popular, it suffers in predictably similar ways.
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You're kiding me right ? It isn't april first today !
What's to kid? The Windows NT kernel was great. So great that MS completely decided to abandon all other desktop kernel work and migrate to it. It was small, stable, and performant enough to form the basis of a server suite that runs most of the corporate world.
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Microsoft still has deep hooks into Facebook it would seem. Because putting Windows on small devices has always been a great thing to do. Like Windows on the OLPC and Windows on handhelds and Windows on the Raspberry Pi and well, Windows on anything. Must be someone from Microsoft on the BoD or something.
LoB
Yeah right. (Score:5, Insightful)
What kind of a stump-dumb Fng moron would install a Facebook OS on their device by choice?
Re:Yeah right. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Yeah right. (Score:4, Insightful)
What kind of a stump-dumb Fng moron would install a Facebook OS on their device by choice?
Nobody. Like Android, this isn't something you "install". You buy the device, and FBOS is pre-installed. The end-user won't even be aware of it.
Also, FBOS will almost certainly be based on Linux. It makes no sense for them to develop something "from scratch" as TFA claims.
Re:Yeah right. (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd be a bit surprised if it wasn't based on Android even. The logical thing for Facebook to do would be to fork android and build their own GUI on top of it.
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Re: Yeah right. (Score:3, Interesting)
They are developing it from scratch. They have reasons, which I can't go into do to an NDA. Some of them are reasonable. Others, I don't think are all that sound.
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They are developing it from scratch. They have reasons, which I can't go into do to an NDA. Some of them are reasonable. Others, I don't think are all that sound.
Wow, that is crazy. If they don't want to use Linux because of the GPL, why not start with NetBSD?
I think they are way underestimating the time and effort to create a reliable modern OS.
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What kind of a stump-dumb Fng moron would install a Facebook OS on their device by choice?
Nobody. Like Android, this isn't something you "install". You buy the device, and FBOS is pre-installed. The end-user won't even be aware of it.
Also, FBOS will almost certainly be based on Linux. It makes no sense for them to develop something "from scratch" as TFA claims.
No what would make more sense is if Facebook just bought up all the Windows ARM RT kernel stuff from Microsoft and quickly put their own branding on it.
Microsoft started to turn the desktop into the browser with ME, hell I even remember making the mistake of "upgrading win98 to Millennium Edition" Then just as quickly reformatting the drive and putting 98 sp 2 the hell back on when the desktop kept crashing.
No it would make much more sense if Facebook just bought up the arm kernel work from Microsoft and w
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What kind of a stump-dumb Fng moron would install a Facebook OS on their device by choice?
You completely missed the point. No one is installing Facebook OS. Facebook is simply no longer building their hardware devices on Android. You will not get the choice of what OS is under the hood if you buy a Rift or a Quest or any other of their hardware.
or, you know, just use Linux (Score:2)
Future slashdot: "After a few days of looking into it, and weighing the hundreds of millions of dollars in development costs of creating a while new OS, Facebook decided just to use Linux anyway."
Re:or, you know, just use Linux (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's not kid ourselves. Even if this comes to fruition, it will almost certainly use Linux. Nobody in this day and age is seriously going to build an OS from the ground up. There's a quarter of century of work in Linux; all the drivers, toolkits, toolsets, it would be an absolutely monumental undertaking that even a company with as much cash as Facebook wouldn't want to pull off.
But it isn't going to happen.
BSD (Score:3)
More likely they would use BSD so they don't have to release any sources.
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Doubtful. BSD hasn't exactly gotten the same driver attention in the mobile device space as BSD.
The kernel is GPLv2 and I doubt they'd have a whole lot of 'secret sauce' at the kernel level. Since it's not GPLv3, they can freely lock their devices down so that you can't run a custom kernel, so they can close that loop. They would have to share their kernel changes that probably no one cares about.
Basically I'd see ether using Linux or, depending on Mark Lucovsky, maybe he is adamant about doing a new ker
Re:BSD (Score:5, Insightful)
Doubtful. BSD hasn't exactly gotten the same driver attention in the mobile device space as BSD.
This article is in the context of FB using the OS embedded in their own hardware. You don't have to have drivers to support every chipset and peripheral under the sun when you control the hardware.
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We are not talking about Microsoft Windows here, Linux is open source and buildable from source code. You should try it sometime.. Play around with this might help: https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Complete_Handbook/Building_the_system
LoB
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The issue is a matter of how easy/expensive it is to bother with a different kernel.
The upsides to the kernel in the ecosystem they are dealing in is massive. Because of Android, the kernel support in any component they could dream of already exists. They aren't designing a CPU, GPU, IO, and a ton of other things from scratch.
The downsides are... well rather limited. They may have rightful concerns about Android as a whole (runtime, play store, etc) but the kernel part doesn't really restrain them in any
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Doubtful. BSD hasn't exactly gotten the same driver attention in the mobile device space as BSD.
Yes, and that's why Apple is not using BSD in it's own products. ;)
Using Linux is not a given... (Score:2, Troll)
If you got the scale, and tight control of the Hardware, going non-linux is a viable option. Apple, for one, is very hppy selling you all manner of trinkets (watches, Home Assistants, phones, tablets, streaming devices and PCs) with BSDish underpinnings, with a MACH3ish kernel.
If all you want is (as the TFS says) is VR/AR and Home assistants, there are many OSs/kernels more modern than linux, that can fit the bill. For instance Minix V3 (aka "not-your-father's-Minix"), QNX (microkernel realtime, think of th
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If you got the scale, and tight control of the Hardware, going non-linux is a viable option.
Only if you provide the framework to write apps.
No one in our days with a sane mind is programing for a prop. OS, on the OS level - aka kernel calls.
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Facebook is talking mostly about embedded devices. There are lots of good reasons for writing a ground-up OS there, and it's not nearly as much work as writing a general purpose desktop OS would be.
They'll still probably use Linux though.
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all the drivers, toolkits, toolsets
Let me stop you there. All the drivers, toolkits, and toolsets are completely irrelevant. In fact when you look to the most popular distribution built on Linux, Android, it doesn't use the drivers, toolkits, or toolsets.
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Besides, Android is open source so they could s
Re:or, you know, just use Linux (Score:4, Funny)
Facebook decided just to use Linux anyway.
No, Facebook hired the Windows NT architect, so they obviously want a Microkernel.
This means that they will go with GNU Hurd.
2020 will be "The Year of GNU Hurd on the PhoneTop!"
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Re:or, you know, just use Linux (Score:4, Informative)
It uses multiple rings (on architectures where that is available- Kernel, Executive), so there is some amount of microkernelish separation (inherited from its Mach origin story) but otherwise memory space is unprotected within the kernel, and it's all a single linked module. I.e., executive ring code can directly call kernel ring code with no restrictions, and examine its memory.
I understand your post was in jest, but I always have to clear that up whenever I hear that line.
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Exactly.
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Hundreds of millions of dollars is nothing to Facebook. They're earning billions of dollars per quarter, so a few hundred million on something that protects them from being at the mercy of Google, Microsoft, and Apple would be a price very much worth paying. The bigger problem with developing this kind of thing from scratch is likely to be time rather than money.
For those of us who don't trust Google (Score:2)
Yeah, this'll be a big improvement.
Overly optimisitic or just willfully ignorant? (Score:4, Interesting)
By moving to its own OS, Facebook could have more freedom to bake social interaction -- and hopefully privacy -- deeper into its devices.
We are talking about Facebook here, right? There is no way, ever, that Privacy is ever going to be baked into a Facebook product. On the other hand, better security/encryption to ensure that no-one can find out what sort of metrics they are collecting about their users? That sort of "privacy" I can definitely see getting a lot of care and attention.
I just realized I mentioned Facebook collecting metrics, as if they did any kind of anonymization of their data. They don't. Chances are high that they keep *all* the identifying features included so they can ensure maximum value to advertisers... At least, the ones who have deep enough pockets and can keep their mouths shut about what sort of data they get.
Re:Overly optimisitic or just willfully ignorant? (Score:5, Funny)
There is no way, ever, that Privacy is ever going to be baked into a Facebook product.
In defense, the summary didn't say it was going to INCREASE privacy, just implied that control over privacy is baked in. That way the customer can move the slider from "no privacy" (default setting) all the way up to "fake privacy" at their will.
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I don't think having circular slider is going to help here.
privacy & security #1 (Score:2)
security for Russian SVR intrusion vectors, a secure home for malware spores which will propagate when the devices are "synced" to your home network phone & computer for your convenience.
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Fb doesn't care if they leak data, but they are lying to even the biggest advertisers. They think they're buying targeted advertising, but Fb is showing their ads to people who react extremely negatively to them, calling their authors out for spamming, and blocking all their ads. And Fb knows quite well who those users are, they simply don't care.
NIH syndrome... (Score:2)
What's wrong with: Embedded Linux, VxWorks, or Green Hills ThreadX?
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GPL, expensive/proprietary, expensive/proprietary.
Facebook wants to be able to spy on you, not publish that they're doing so, and also not be dependent on some external supplier.
Realistically though, by "write a new OS", they'll probably use linux or BSD, stick their own GUI on it, and just do all the spying at that level. Just like Google did.
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GPL
Not really relevant. Not to start a license war, but the kernel is GPL2. It can be freely tivoized.
I.e., you only have to release the source for the direct modifications to the kernel, not your magical binary blobs that handle all your special sauce in the kernel.
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Facebook may want to build some spying into the kernel. I agree, they don't *have* to do this, but they might want to. Imagine, the first OS designed from the ground up to increase the quality of ads delivered to the consumer.
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I.e,
Let's say they want a kernel module that reports all DNS queries back to facebook, and they don't want to release the source of said module.
Step 1.) You write a generic connector that allows you to hook an arbitrary module into the network stack. If it uses GPL symbols, it must be GPL licensed- so you want this connector to be as generic as possible, since you w
Will they call it NoPriv OS or TracU? (Score:2)
I don't know who would be stupid enough to buy anything that has an OS developed by Facebook. Who would trust it?
I wonder if it will have a larger following than webOS?
Fixed that for you... (Score:3)
Comedy gold right here (Score:2)
"By moving to its own OS, Facebook could have more freedom to bake social interaction -- and hopefully privacy -- deeper into its devices."
BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
Stop, stop, you are killing me..........
"from scratch" (Score:2)
If they're insane enough to think they'll do it from scratch, it'll crater. They will need to start with linux or bsd and go from there.
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Here's to that! :)
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This is what I'm thinking - really from scratch, or just another Linux kernel respin? If it were me, I wouldn't be starting from NT or Android - perhaps something simpler like an older DEC operating system, or even AmigaDOS... (half-kidding, but something more lightweight and understandable)
go for it facebook (Score:2)
go for it facebook, build that operating system. maybe I will be able to get your tracking and data collecting apps off my android phone. I am tired of your apps running in the background and not being able to stop or uninstall it because it was part of the bloatware that came with it. I do not have a facebook account for a reason but unfortunately you don't care and still think you should be able to track me and collect data about me.
guess I am dreaming they will ever leave the android os even if they
I have a trust issue with Android, but... (Score:2)
How could anyone reasonably trust an OS from Facebook?
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How could anyone reasonably trust an OS from Facebook?
Also valid for "How could anyone reasonably trust a web site from Facebook?"...
You have your answer.
You know mature companies can compete and partner. (Score:3)
You see this with Apple and Microsoft. Where they are bitter rivals, yet they are their biggest business partners. Mature Companies are able to keep a duality with them and keep it fairly well in balanced.
Facebook is a huge company, it wouldn't be in Alphabets best interest to drop business ties, and make Android unsupportable. Because Alphabet would just be shooting themselves in the foot, especially for these products where the OS isn't the big selling feature, but additional custom features the OS runs.
Facebook OS could open the door for them to have no one to blame but themselves if something goes wrong. As well need a Team of OS Developers and support team for the long run.
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You see this with Apple and Microsoft. Where they are bitter rivals, yet they are their biggest business partners. Mature Companies are able to keep a duality with them and keep it fairly well in balanced.
If only Amazon and Google could manage the same. Chromecast with proper support for Prime Video and Fire TV with Youtube support. Oh wait, that finally happened (after how many years). But Amazon still won't even sell Google hardware in their stores.
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If only Amazon and Google could manage the same. Chromecast with proper support for Prime Video and Fire TV with Youtube support. Oh wait, that finally happened (after how many years).
It should be pointed out that the problem was/is all on Amazon's side. Chromecast provides an open API; anyone can build an app that can cast to Chrome.
Nice plan! (Score:2)
But it won't succeed. Apple didn't. Huawei won't as well. Why should they?
Technology? Don't think so.
Marketing? Nah!
And why should any manufacturer support it?
Privacy? (Score:2)
Privacy? You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
We don't want the next generation (Score:2)
Can escape our surveillance even when they're not using our sites.
Alex Heath is clearly either an idiot or a shill. Or both, I suppose.
Another Linux? (Score:2)
So will this be another flavor of Linux for phones? Will Facebook be honest about it, unlike Google, and properly credit the Linux community, without which Facebook would not exist? Just asking.
Comedians abound (Score:2)
Tee hee. That's a good one. Facebook is so concerned about privacy.
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To quote the great Rod Blagojevich: "I've got this thing, and it's fucking golden. I'm just not giving it up for fucking nothing."
When Facebook talks about privacy, they mean leaking personal information to their competitors.
Old interview with Cutler and Lucovsky (Score:3)
https://www.landley.net/histor... [landley.net]
I wonder what their design priorities really are. The world has changed a ton since then.
At some point an OS will allow them to ship pure Facebook devices. They could take docker/zones to the next level and make that the default form of an OS, where an application has its own overlay that's completely independent of everything. That would make certain things much, much easier.
Why?!?!?!...sounds like next Fire Phone (Score:2)
Also, how badly do you want to invest in an OS written by an ad company. Android seems to be the exception of a Google success outsi
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I agree with most of your comment, but this is actually incorrect. React has taken the market and mindshare, is growing faster and has a higher satisfaction rating. I'm not offering any opinion on the technologies, just pointing that out.
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It's not for a phone.
Save a lot of programming hours. (Score:2)
Privacy (Score:2)
I am on facebook and I google a lot of stuff yet nobody has invaded my privacy. I don't care that an AI or that Zuckerface guy or the Larry Paragraph dude somewhere knows a couple of useless facts and maybe a couple of assumptions about me. I really don't care, tbh. I really don't see any negatives. I'm really not afraid of fools knowing what I search for -- I don't see how or why they'd gain by using that against me. Let me know when the AI decides to send Ninjas after me. And btw, good luck to the Ninja
What does Facebook and China have in common? (Score:2)
Facebook should just base it on Windows 10, that way Microsoft will have done 90% of the job for them.
"From scratch?" (Score:2)
Sounds like bullshit. More likely this will be a Linux or xBDS kernel with a Gnu tools user-space and maybe some special drivers. Even Facebook does not have the resources to build a new OS from scratch in reasonable time.
FaceOS - Now with 50% MORE Tracking! (Score:2)
Count on the Facebook OS to have tracking built in at a level hitherto unknown, or even dreamt of.
Seven Hells... (Score:2)
I can't imagine anything worse than being made to use a device with Facebook's mantra of privacy abuse at it's very core.
OK (Score:2)
When I see the words "Facebook", "operating system" and "privacy" in the same sentence I know I shan't be going anywhere near it!
Great news (Score:2)
delusional summary (Score:2)