
First Rule of Google Fuchsia OS Is to Not to Talk About It - secjet1
https://fuchsiatalks.com/2017/05/19/first-rule-google-fuchsia-os-not-talk/
======
tyingq
Saw this rant about Fuchsia on reddit that appears on the surface to make some
good points:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/6a026o/googles...](https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/6a026o/googles_fuchsia_smartphone_os_dumps_linux_has_a/dhbjmvx/)
Not my area of expertise for sure though.

Any kernel dev types here had a chance to look at Fuchsia? Is the criticism
warranted?

Update: Fixed link to point at the right comment.

Edit: Should have mentioned the tone is a bit over the top. More interested in
the actual points raised though.

~~~
CountSessine
We all have bad days, but some of this rant is really toxic.

 _Dear god. I looked at the kernel and it 's awful_

 _Stuff real operating systems have solved decades ago_

 _WTF?_

 _This is hilarious. Did they decide to reinvent all the wheels badly just
because someone at Google was bored?_

 _The ex kernel developer in me feels insulted that a serious company would
release something this immature_

So, have they actually released Fuschia? I was under the impression that this
was still being developed in the open until such time as it actually becomes a
"real operating system"? And IMHO the world needs a good open-source
microkernel OS; I'm ok if the scheduler is suboptimal on release - that can be
fixed eventually. Linux will never be a microkernel OS, but Fuchsia can always
be optimized. Performance-wise it just needs to be good-enough on release.

~~~
ProAm
> Did they decide to reinvent all the wheels badly just because someone at
> Google was bored?

This is how projects are born and die at Google. They live until no one is
interested in them anymore and they are abandoned.

~~~
trendia
> They live until no one is interested in them anymore and they are abandoned.

Sometimes they don't even wait until no one is interested!

------
noir_lord
Since site is down:

[https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Ej2flu...](https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Ej2flu1TlrgJ:https://fuchsiatalks.com/2017/05/19/first-
rule-google-fuchsia-os-not-talk/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk)

~~~
archon810
They plagiarized our story. Please don't link to them.

Original: [http://www.androidpolice.com/2017/05/19/googles-dave-
burke-f...](http://www.androidpolice.com/2017/05/19/googles-dave-burke-first-
rule-fuchsia-dont-talk-fuchsia/)

------
Ajedi32
Not really any new information here. It's fun to speculate about what Fuchsia
might become, but it's pretty clear Google's not ready to announce anything
yet. The only reason we even know it exists is because they made the source
code public.

~~~
theDoug
Exactly this. And So fun to speculate on something far from its likely end
goal or release state, because _only_ of who made it public.

A lot of cooks in the opinion kitchen looking out the window at wheat growing,
pretending it’s already a baked cake, and of which they already dislike the
taste.

(Disclosure: I work at Google, not on this.)

~~~
on_and_off
Since I work on Android, I try to follow Fuchsia closely since it might impact
me greatly one day.

The funniest part is that I have seen reviews of Fuchsia on Youtube.

I am not at Google either but there are 99% chances that the UI that is
committed right now is just a tech test designed by devs.

------
gwbas1c
My guess is that some Google engineers started an OS project to scratch their
own itch, or to test the waters on an anticipated business problem. Detailed
speculation is probably useless at this point.

That being said, I really think the time is ripe for a new desktop OS. There's
a lot of lessons from iOS and Android that just aren't showing up on Mac and
Windows.

~~~
tyingq
I can appreciate that, but I am also not excited about a walled garden growing
around desktop.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
Given that Google is progressively building higher and higher walls around
Android, thinking a Google project is going to save you from walled gardens is
perhaps a bit silly. Right now it's not marketable, but once it is, expect the
business people at Google to start pushing Play Services and the like onto
this platform too.

That being said, there's a lot of things about Fuchsia that are pretty
interesting, and I'm definitely curious what ends up being done with it.

~~~
tyingq
> thinking a Google project is going to save you from walled gardens is
> perhaps a bit silly

Not sure where you got that impression. I do not think this project will save
me from anything.

------
drewg123
The first rule of almost any project at Google is not to talk about it. It the
only job I've ever had where I could not tell my wife anything about my work,
aside from how lunch was. My wife joked that Google was almost as paranoid as
the DoD or NSA, and thought it was very presumptuous of them to force so much
secrecy.

~~~
spun
I had the same experience at Amazon with their secret projects, including each
iteration of their kindle fires

~~~
johansch
Yeah, every company kinda does this. It seems like most of the the time it's a
combination of:

a) we have no idea if this is unique or not (hint: a Kindle Fire revision
probably isn't)

b) it makes things seem more exciting.

The weird thing about Fuchsia is that all of the development is done in the
open, but noone wants to give any context.

~~~
posixplz
Well if the company is publicly traded, secrecy of internal matters is a legal
requirement and contingency of employment.

~~~
johansch
By default, certainly.

Btw: In February I spent some time looking at the then about 100 committers to
Fuchsia/Flutter. Some quite impressive names. I think Fuchsia is a _really_
serious effort in the Chrome team.

~~~
gsnedders
> I think Fuchsia is a really serious effort in the Chrome team.

There's definitely a lot of ex-Chrome people there, but I don't think it
follows that it is in any way in the Chrome team. I'm still curious as to
_why_ all of them are essentially creating a new OS, though! Quite the
departure from what they've worked on before (and many have been working on
the web for two decades).

------
EddieRingle
This looks to be plagiarized from Android Police.

[http://www.androidpolice.com/2017/05/19/googles-dave-
burke-f...](http://www.androidpolice.com/2017/05/19/googles-dave-burke-first-
rule-fuchsia-dont-talk-fuchsia/)

EDIT: And the submitter has only submitted links from this blog.

------
inetknght
> Did they decide to reinvent all the wheels badly just because someone at
> Google was bored?

If I had to guess, it would be that (bored), or perhaps trying to specifically
avoid existing patents/copyrights/etc by showing that they did completely
reinvent the wheel instead of copying from existing "common knowledge"?

I'm no lawyer though, especially not a patent lawyer, so I could be way off
the mark...

------
on_and_off
Not exactly surprising.

Even something like Kotlin as 1st party language has been kept under wraps
until the last moment.

Whether Kotlin is an experiment, the future of Android or something else,
Google is not going to discuss about it for a while.

