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Google's Mysterious Fuchsia OS Makes its Public Debut (techhive.com) 68

Posted by msmash from the how-about-that dept.
Big under-the-hood changes are coming to Google's original Nest Hub, even if most users won't ever be aware of what's happening. From a report: Starting today, the open-source Fuchsia OS will start rolling out to first-gen Nest Hub displays, according to 9to5Google. In the works since 2016, Fuchsia will land first on Nest Hub devices enrolled in Google's Preview Program, before arriving more widely on non-Preview Program displays. Don't expect the user experience to change much, though. 9to5Google notes that the look and feel of Fuchsia OS-powered Nest Hubs will be "essentially identical" to what it was before.

OK, so what's the big deal about Fuchsia, then? It's a new, open-source OS that's decidedly not based on the Linux kernel, as Android and Chrome OS are. Instead, Fuchsia is based on Magneta, which (as we described it back in 2016) is "combination microkernel and set of user-space services and hardware drivers" with a "physics based renderer" that can power graphical user interfaces. Because it's an open-source project, Fuchsia's existence has been well publicized over the years, although its purpose has been harder to fathom; "out in the open" yet "shrouded in mystery" is how we aptly put it. With its arrival on the original Nest Hub, Fuchsia is taking its first tentative steps out of the lab and into the hands of actual users, even if those users aren't aware of the new OS.
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Google's Mysterious Fuchsia OS Makes its Public Debut More

Google's Mysterious Fuchsia OS Makes its Public Debut

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  • Polls are open for when it will get dropped (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jellomizer ( 103300 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2021 @10:31AM (#61420174)

    New Google Product. Limited Use Cases. Based on new code, in which Google will need to invest time and money for a larger set of support.

    I am guessing Google will drop this product in July 2023

    • Re:Polls are open for when it will get dropped (Score:4, Informative)

      by Ostracus ( 1354233 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2021 @10:51AM (#61420258) Journal

      Well it is open-source [fuchsia.dev] and after all isn't one of the principles that no one could take it away from you, not even Google.

      • While I do like and support open source, it's difficult for complex open source projects to be viable without corporate support (direct or indirect). Why would Google support two distinct operating systems? Will this new OS be the next GNU Hurd?

        • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

          by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2021 @11:24AM (#61420366)
          Comment removed based on user account deletion

          • TVs with Android have been a failure, for example. It's a decent mobile phone or tablet operating system, but beyond that it's not been very successful.

            Google should have known that even the premium brands would put extremely slow CPUs in their smart TVs. But the OS is not really optimized for such slow hardware.

            It doesn't help that most TVs that implement Android TV have essentially two different OSs. If the TV functions were all implemented under Android TV userspace it would be a little more seamless. As it is, most I see flip back and forth between "TV mode" and "Android mode"

            • Google should have known that even the premium brands would put extremely slow CPUs in their smart TVs.

              For the most part the CPUs in smart TVs aren't slow. The reality is they are bogged down with bloat and unimaginably poorly written code for what should be a very simple piece of embedded software.

          • They already support two distinct operating systems, Android and ChromeOS. Neither are remotely alike, the only thing the two have in common is that they both use the Linux kernel. ChromeOS also has a sometimes-implemented / sometimes-not Android compatibility layer, but that's as far as it goes.

            False. Chrome OS is actually based on Android, even uses the same surface flinger renderer, only a lot of Android specific bits (like ART/dalvik, GMS, and a few others) are removed. Adding support for Android apps only requires adding a subsystem that includes all of that.

            Supporting a third doesn't seem extreme if it's for a different purpose. Android has been traditionally their "Put it everywhere" OS, and, well, it doesn't work like that.

            It's meant for consumer devices, and it does pretty well at that.

            TVs with Android have been a failure, for example. It's a decent mobile phone or tablet operating system, but beyond that it's not been very successful.

            Based on what? It's the third most common OS used in smart TVs, and in Europe and Asia it's the most popular OS for cable boxes. And what's easily the best streaming box out

          • Re: (Score:3)

            by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

            Android TV is a huge success. The market is flooded with hundreds of devices, from the cheapest STBs to Nvidia Shield to many big TV brands. Every streaming service supports it.

            Some cars come with Android too now, and while it's early days it's been well received.

          • If they wanted a microkernel, wasn't the QNX-based kernel already in every target market?

            Designing microkernels does not appear to be easy, as anyone who has watched the HURD over the years will know. Why reinvent the QNX wheel?

            • Because why not add another one to the list [osdev.org].

              The primary motivating concern behind Fuchsia seems to have been security, and the Google engineers felt that they could do it better than the alternatives.

            • Creating Micro-kernel OS's is trivially easy. What's hard is to make the result something other than a steaming pile of shit performance.

              Every micro-kernel developed to date spends 90% of it's development time poking holes in the micro-kernel to improve performance above big pile of shit. Some of MS's best OS designers spent a decade poking holes in the NT kernel to improve it's performance enough that literally anything else including DOS didn't eat it's lunch.

              MK's are easy to create, they are a mountain o

          • The purpose of FusciaOS is for Google to get rid of the GPL licensed Linux. That and Google constant not is house syndrome where they constantly reinvent the wheel because the previous wheel wasn't developed by Google.

            FusciaOS is the result of Google lingering issues with NIHS in both Android and ChromeOS along with their dislike of GPL software (or preference for BSD license).

            But I tend to agree, it will be around a couple years, they will realize the level of investment needed to bring it even 50% of the

        • With rolling this out to even a single Nest product, it already has a larger installed base than GNU/Hurd.

      • This is only true if the device has an open bootloader. If there is no way for you to update the free software, it isn't really free.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by HiThere ( 15173 )

        None of the links to "open-source" so far have lead to a license. (The one in the article is totally borked, starting off "hhttps:mobile....",) So I'm not really convinced that I can trust the license. And since the company is Google, I'll take some rather thorough convincing. The GPL would do it, but even the BSD or MIT licenses would be acceptable. Something they've had their own lawyers whack together wouldn't even rate looking at.

        • Fuchsia OS is licensed under BSD, MIT and Apache 2.0. Not GPL. The Zircon kernel is MIT, the "Zircon System" and bootloader are BSD, the rest is a mix https://fuchsia.googlesource.c... [googlesource.com]

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by HiThere ( 15173 )

            Well, BSD and MIT are acceptable. I'm not sure about the Apache license, as I've never really investigated it seriously. Of course, that definitely makes it "open source" rather than "free software", with the implicit position that it may be closed as some point in the future...but that wouldn't affect code already released.

            OTOH, a mix of licenses is a bit worrisome. Even if each one is acceptable, one doesn't really know how they interact. If Google had the reputation they had when they started this pr

    • No, it won't. It's too important to Google to be dropped in the near future. And that's apart from the fact that it's open-source.
    • lol ... yea i was just thinking : "if it makes it past the zone where the 3D tv lives im sure i'll hear more about it"

    • I am guessing Google will drop this product in July 2023

      This seems like it's a trial by fire... but on a small scale. If it proves to be more trouble than it's worth then it will be put on life support before pulling the plug. If it survives the trial then it will receive additional focus. The original endgame for Fuchsia was to replace the Linux kernel in Android because of pesky driver issues that come with a monolithic kernel. Since it's not POSIX-esque it needed to build out replacement libraries that needed some missing functionality. I'm assuming the

  • Open source? (Score:4, Informative)

    by boudie2 ( 1134233 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2021 @10:39AM (#61420210)
    Of course what Google means by open source isn't what most people would call open source. Look at the Chromebook and how difficult it is to install any old Linux distro on it. Then they tell you it's for your own protection. As a company, they seem to have ADHD.

    • Re:Open source? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Ostracus ( 1354233 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2021 @10:56AM (#61420282) Journal

      All that illustrates is the difference between hardware and software. As well as the letter and the spirit of the law. Hence Tivoization [wikipedia.org] and GPLv3.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by schweini ( 607711 )
      I actually like the way Chromebooks (at least the old ones I have) handle this! They usually are quite locked down (which is part of their charm in educational and even enterprise environments), but if you open them up, they usually have a physical screw inside which you can remove to enable developer mode, which gives you full access and warning messages.
      This keeps "n00bs" away from rooting and all the fun stuff, but gives more adventurous people all the power they need.
      • Been down that rabbit hole, and yes, some you just loosen a screw. The majority of them no. There's a number of caveats involved. Lot simpler to just get a Windows laptop if you're getting the thing to put Linux on it. Obviously they don't want you putting Linux on it. They've run their servers on Linux since the start, used the kernel for Chrome OS and Android and never miss an opportunity to NOT support it.

    • So it translates to "TiVoization".

      And this is why people who oppose the GPL3 are actively conteibuting to destroying the open souce community and freedom.

      I dream of completely free software with no licenses too, but I know it is an unrealistic dream, and regulation means nobody stops the biggest troglodyte from using his "freedom" to hit you with a club and take all your mammoth meat and freedom.

  • I can't even post it here because Slashdot thinks it's ascii art (what year is it)

  • "But in Purple... I'm Stunning!"
  • Fuchsia, Magenta. They are both COLOURS, FFS. Sack the editors.

  • Does that mean I'll have to learn how to spell the color?

    Pretty sure that's a hard stop for me.

    • It's easy once you know it's named after one of the many people called Fuchs [wikipedia.org] - specifically Leonhart Fuchs [wikipedia.org].
    • It's also a flower. And easy to spell for people who pronounce it properly, similar to the name of the guy it was named after: FUHG-sia, rather than FYOO-sha.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by chill ( 34294 )

        Also a character from The Rocky Horror Picture Show [imdb.com].

      • The proper pronunciation isn't possible in English as the sounds you'd use for Fuchs can only be approximated in most English dialects. And it's also useless as a guide as Fuchs is pronounce closer to English "fox" than how the vast majority of English speakers pronounce fuchsia.

        People will have to accept that we're not going to get this right. That the general population in the English speaking world won't be speaking German (or Latin) probably ever. And that because we butcher the pronunciation we'll also

  • I did not install Nest in my home because Google has to monetize users to make money, so i went with someone I paid. But if the software is open top to bottom and there is no hiding of telemetry, this could do a lot to improve trust. Everyone remembers the secret microphone.

    • You could have open source firmware on a device and not be aware of a secret microphone in the hardware. You're not likely to find it just by looking at source code if we never initialize the hardware, or just blast some magic values into the hardware that puts it into a reasonable power-on-reset state. Of course once we do turn it on you'll find out, so that's something at least. Doesn't keep the NSA or Google from exploiting your "open" device to do nefarious things. I wonder how many times law enforcemen

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by fermion ( 181285 )
        If it is not in the code, then it is not likely an issue, unless it is purposefully hidden,

  • The headline doesn't make sense (Score:3)

    by wakeboarder ( 2695839 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2021 @12:11PM (#61420562)

    It says the OS is open, and shrouded in mystery? So can you not view the source?

    • https://fuchsia.googlesource.c... [googlesource.com]

      Because you "many eyes" Linux folks don't bother actually reading it. The heartbleed bug in SSL proved many eyes to be false.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by xalqor ( 6762950 )

        ... whereas thousands of exploited bugs in Microsoft Windows and in Windows apps by Microsoft and others prove there's little security advantage to keeping the source closed?

        Anyway "many eyes" is an idea, a principle to be applied, not something to be proved or disproved. You can even use the same principle within a closed source shop, with whoever does have access -- the more people are reviewing code and testing for bugs, the more bugs are likely to be found (and fixed) before any damage happens.

    • Re:The headline doesn't make sense (Score:5, Funny)

      by ljw1004 ( 764174 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2021 @01:43PM (#61420846)

      It says the OS is open, and shrouded in mystery? So can you not view the source?

      I'm a developer. The code I wrote LAST WEEK is often shrouded in mystery to me.

      • It says the OS is open, and shrouded in mystery? So can you not view the source?

        I'm a developer. The code I wrote LAST WEEK is often shrouded in mystery to me.

        Ah! You must be a C programmer! Yes, good old C, the "write-only language". :)

        --
        .nosig

    • The aspect that is shrouded in mystery is the purpose and long term goals of Google in bothering to produce this OS, not the OS itself. Obviously.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      I think they mean they don't know why Google would create a new OS when it already has two successful ones.

      Looking at it they seem to be trying to improve the security model. SE Linux isn't the be-all and end-all. The new model also makes updating parts that were in the Linux kernel but are now micro services easier, independent of the device manufacturer.

    • The headline doesn't make sense

      Msmash is pleased to make your acquaintance.

  • Out of all of Google's other products, many with questionable behaviors, how did an interesting open-source operating system end up with a name that sounds like "fucks ya"?

  • Google is attempting to escape the GPL. That is what this is all about.

    I'm in favor of FOSS all the way. We're almost there with fully open source hardware like RISV-V etc coming on too. This is good for privacy and security.

    There are still attacks possible though, even on fully open source hardware. There are even sub-gate level dopant attacks that can't be seen even if you decap and scan the chip with a STEM! So ... don't rely on computers to secure anything that can cost you your life or liberty.

    For eve

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