
Project Fuchsia: Google Is Quietly Working on a Successor to Android - uptown
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-07-19/google-team-is-said-to-plot-android-successor-draw-skepticism
======
remir
_" One person who has spoken to Fuchsia staff described the effort simply:
"It’s a senior-engineer retention project."_

This has been my therory for a while. You see all these different projects
competing against each other (multiple messaging apps are a good example) and
you think: why is Google so unfocused? But what Google basically wants to do
is hoard engineers so they don't leave and go work for competitors and make
them stronger (or start their own companies that could compete against
Google).

So Google's management figured out that if they give these enginners some cool
stuff to work on, they'll stay at the company, even if the stuff they work on
is a duplicate of something else the company has already done.

~~~
dunpeal
Per the article, Google has over 100 engineers working on Fuchsia. If these
are all "senior engineers" that "Google is trying to retain", the cost of
keeping them must be at least 50 million per year.

That's a lot of money to pay just for retention of people who are not
producing anything of value, consuming many other resources (office space,
network, hardware, perks), and deeply committed to a project that supposedly
will never benefit their employer.

A rich employer may retain an unproductive employee for a limited amount of
time if they expect it to ultimately pay off. It just doesn't make any sense
to retain someone indefinitely if they're not going to produce anything of
value, and (implicitly) will quit the moment you try to put them on any sort
of real-world valuable work. Google is a public company with fiduciary
responsibilities to its shareholders and a legally accountable board, it can't
just throw tens of millions of dollars away without good reason or
explanation.

> You see all these different projects competing against each other (multiple
> messaging apps are a good example) and you think: why is Google so
> unfocused?

There are many good reasons to have multiple teams competing against each
other, building the same product. Often it will bring a strong drive and pace
to all competing projects, as well as cross-pollination, and eventually they
often merge to a single deliverable that is better than any of the projects
could produce individually.

> what Google basically wants to do is hoard engineers

I'm not sure why all these improbable theories make more sense to you than the
plain fact that Android was designed quite a few years ago, has many natural
deficiencies, and - like all technologies - will eventually be replaced by a
superior successor.

That's exactly what Fuchsia is about. Its existence does not require any
elaborate conspiracy theory. On the contrary: given how strategically
important the Android market niche is for Google, it would be very surprising
if Google was _not_ working on a viable successor. It's as if Sony didn't have
a successor for the PS4 in the pipeline, and just expected it to sell forever,
with minor patches here and there.

~~~
ashelmire
> If these are all "senior engineers" that "Google is trying to retain", the
> cost of keeping them must be at least 50 million per year.

Wait uh... are you saying seniors at Google make an average of $500k?

~~~
ummonk
That seems like a low estimate of the cost of a senior SWE at Google. They
probably earn at least 400k in cash + bonus + stock, and there are employer
costs beyond that (office space, benefits, payroll taxes).

~~~
ashelmire
Glassdoor has avg total comp for senior swes at google at 193k...

~~~
fyi_see_fyi
I am very surprised if that's the case.

For what it's worth, I just started at Google as a Senior SWE this summer. My
base is in the 180s. With an average annual bonus, my moving/starting bonus,
and stock grant (ignoring stock price movements), my first four years should
be 400ish...very high 300s really.

BTW, [https://www.levels.fyi/](https://www.levels.fyi/) is another source of
data which might prove useful

190 total comp is more in line with what I expect for an early career person.
Welcome to 2018 tech company salaries.

~~~
ashelmire
That's a pretty great package... brb applying to work at Google.

------
drewda
> "The company must also settle some internal feuds. Some of the principles
> that Fuchsia creators are pursuing have already run up against Google’s
> business model. Google’s ads business relies on an ability to target users
> based on their location and activity, and Fuchsia’s nascent privacy features
> would, if implemented, hamstring this important business. There’s already
> been at least one clash between advertising and engineering over security
> and privacy features of the fledgling operating system, according to a
> person familiar with the matter. The ad team prevailed, this person said."

~~~
eganist
> The ad team prevailed, this person said.

Of course they did.

A controversial idea, but you know how much easier this would be for everyone
if Google offered an option for users to be paid for volunteering your
information to them? It's a precedent most fledgling ad companies wouldn't be
able to match... even if it's just a few dollars a month, or maybe 30ish bucks
a year. It'd cut into Google's bottom line, but it would eradicate the
competition.

And then on top of that, you've got the security and privacy wins by baking
the product to be secure by default but allowing consumers to accept a
paycheck to disable some of it for Google. That risk calculus works for plenty
of people (if not for myself).

Google's wins:

• Security and Privacy by default

• Dismantling start-up competition who can't afford to pay for the data they
harvest

• Growing marketshare.

Drawbacks:

• Immediate hit to Google's revenue stream

• Permanent assignment of value to data in the perception of consumers

The only big outstanding risk would be posed by rivals with large warchests
able to subsidize a similar payment scheme, but honestly once that's done, the
winner is a public which now has the ability to monetize their data.

~~~
scarface74
I’ve got a better idea. Google could always ship a product that people are
willing to pay enough for where it is a sustainable business without being as
supported.

~~~
s17n
Google is a consumer software company. Consumers aren't willing to pay for
software.

~~~
scarface74
The article is not about standalone software. It is about an operating system
that will be used to sell hardware. Apple is proof that consumers are willing
to pay enough for hardware to keep a company profitable.

------
kbumsik
> "Switching away from Android could provide Google the opportunity to hit the
> reset button on any mistakes they believe they made a decade ago,". "They
> might be able to regain some power that they’ve ceded to device
> manufacturers and telecom carriers."

How making a new OS achive this? What kind of problems Fuchsia could solve
when Linux can’t solve?

I personally hope Fuchsia would remain as an experimental project. A new non-
GPL OS by a big player like Google is a bad news for hardware dev and
enthusiasts from XDA. This will make hardware driver developments more
fragmented and closed-source.

Smartphone manufacturers are trying to hide their kernel and device drivers,
even they are using Linux. Imagine there are no legal restrictions to hide
those.

~~~
kyrra
One of Android's major headaches is that Linux does not have a stable driver
interface. Interfaces within linux change regularly, but only drivers that are
checked into the main tree are updated. If you maintain a driver outside of
that tree, you will experience pain. That's how Android operated and why it's
linux kernel rarely changed (and why doing OS updates for phones was so hard).

Android has been trying to fix this with treble[0], which will make many more
phones get OS updates going forward. So Android has attempted to work around
one of linux major problems.

Another large problem is that Linux was designed for desktop architectures.
It's design and focus continues to go that way. This has impact across an
entire range of functionality that an OS is supposed to bring.

Fuschia seems to be a research project with a focus on mobile/laptop type
devices. It could care less about server type environments, which lets it make
different tradeoffs in design.

[0]
[https://source.android.com/devices/architecture/](https://source.android.com/devices/architecture/)

~~~
endorphone
"That's how Android operated and why it's linux kernel rarely changed "

Android changed Linux kernels with every single release, from 2.6.27 to 4.10
by core release, and vendors often update kernels incrementally in between.
Any driver issues are _trivial_ to change presuming they didn't come in a
binary blob and the source refused any further changes, which is supposedly
the case with Qualcomm hardware in the Nexus 6, for instance.

"Android has been trying to fix this with treble[0]"

Treble is about the intra-Android interfaces, not Linux device interfaces.
This is about Google doing large scale, breaking changes that made vendors
just throw up their hands.

"Another large problem is that Linux was designed for desktop architectures"

Nope.

The reality is that everyone always thinks they can rebuild it better. Second
(Third, Fourth, etc) system effect. It the very basis of NIH syndrome. So some
small group at Google wants to research OS'. Whatever. The likelihood that
this replaces Android, or that it is in anyone's imaginations that it actually
will besides content writers outside of Google, seems very low.

------
simosx
This Bloomberg article has several shortcomings.

1\. "Android and Chrome OS are built on Linux, a widely used open-source
programming language."

Here they mix up the Linux kernel with the Java programming language.

2\. "Moving from Linux, though, could have upsides for Google. Android’s use
of the technology, which is owned by Oracle Corp., is at the center of a
lengthy, bitter lawsuit between the two companies. Shifting away from using
Linux would help Google’s legal case that its software isn’t reliant on
Oracle."

While here they mix up the Java programming language with the Linux kernel.

~~~
gizmo385
Imagine the horrors if Oracle "owned" Linux...

~~~
devmunchies
Then I’m sure Unix or FreeBSD would be more prevalent for servers.

------
zapita
> _Google Is Quietly Working on a Successor to Android_

So quietly that they pitched a story about it to Bloomberg.

~~~
ant6n
So quietly, it's almost nefarious

------
zellyn
For those of you who want more information, and especially more accurate
information, check out Fuchsia Fridays:
[https://9to5google.com/guides/fuchsia-
friday/](https://9to5google.com/guides/fuchsia-friday/)

~~~
Skylled
Thanks for your support.

------
jokoon
Apparently it uses a micro kernel, zircon.

I'm curious about this kernel, honestly making something new from the ground
up doesn't seem like a good idea.

I wonder how much of an advantage it was for android to use linux as a kernel,
but I guess it was a gigantic advantage, which let them focus on what mattered
in the development of android.

Other question: any kernel/OS developer here to explain if a micro kernel
makes his job easier or harder? Having the flexibility of a micro kernel seems
good, but I'm not sure it's that much important.

~~~
ahartmetz
I'd like to know how Zircon compares to L4 (implementations).

When I asked Tanenbaum at FOSDEM why he didn't pick L4 for Minix 3, he just
got annoyed and seemed to think I was asking why he didn't just use the L4 OS
(which doesn't exist) instead of creating Minix 3 - or something. In any case
I didn't get a good answer. He could have created his own implementation if he
wanted, L4 is just a specification with a few existing high quality
implementations that prove the concept...

~~~
ahartmetz
Note: I think he thought I thought L4 was an OS, I'm pretty sure he knows what
L4 is.

------
losvedir
I wrote a small Flutter app recently and rather enjoyed the experience. I'm
reluctant to spend more time on the technology, though, since it seems like it
has a high chance of dying out. But as I understand it, Fuchsia would have
native apps written using Flutter as well, which would be great, so I really
hope it does take off.

~~~
myth_drannon
Why do you think it has a high chance of dying?

~~~
jonny_eh
It's based on Dart, a language that already failed to take off in browsers?
Just a guess.

~~~
Apocryphon
I think it's more of an issue with it coming from and being maintained by
Google. I think aversion to Dart is overrated; it's a boringly stable and
straightforward language, and I'm puzzled that mobile developers aren't more
open to learning it, given how Objective-C/Swift/Kotlin were languages that
most had to learn for developing on their respective smartphone.

------
_bxg1
Here's a more thorough and technical overview:

[https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/01/googles-fuchsia-
os-o...](https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/01/googles-fuchsia-os-on-the-
pixelbook-it-works-it-actually-works/)

------
caycep
This has been percolating along for a few years, no? I remember hearing vague
announcements about a Fuchsia project for a while.

~~~
notatoad
I don't think there's been much in the way of announcements, but yes, this has
been in progress for a few years. It's being developed in the open, with a
public github repo.

~~~
Matthias247
The source code in the open is one thing. However there are not a lot of
design documents or discussions visible for the public. Therefore it's hard to
follow the development and really getting an idea where the project is
heading.

~~~
aidenn0
This was actually the main point of The Cathedral and the Bazaar; GNU was the
Cathedral...

------
ucaetano
Quietly? The entire development has been public, hasn't it?

~~~
hughes
Something can be both quiet and public.

------
forapurpose
I've been wondering why so many Bloomberg articles have been on the front page
recently, maybe in the last 3-6 months. This OP seems like a good example
because there has been coverage of Fuchsia from more technical sources for
awhile and I doubt the Bloomberg article adds much. Or is the change in
frequency of Bloomberg posts just a misperception on my part? I don't have any
data.

~~~
Shooti
Due to Mark Gurmans track record a Bloomberg rumor on a tech companies future
plans for a product are almost as trustworthy as official PR from the company.
More leaks = more representation on HN.

~~~
forapurpose
Fuschia is well-known (in tech circles); he's not breaking a new story.

------
jasonmp85
Did anyone think maybe using a pinkish shade for a Second System codename is
asking for it to fail?

Apple had a Project Pink back in '88 to be the successor to System Software 6.
They hoped to release it in 1993, instead buying NeXT in 1997 and launching OS
X in 2001:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copland_(operating_system)#Pin...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copland_\(operating_system\)#Pink_and_Blue)

Microsoft's Project Pink was the result of their Danger acquisition. It didn't
fare well either:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Kin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Kin)

I wish Google the best of luck.

~~~
bitmapbrother
The Fuchsia name is derived from projects the primary Fuchsia OS developers
previously worked on at Apple - Project Pink and Project Purple. Pink + Purple
= Fuchsia.

------
c0d3man
No matter what, We must need a new OS, encompassing big screen devices as well
as small IOT devices. No more JAVA and JVM. I had loved it for 15 years but
now I hate it most; I am sick and tired of developing Android because of the
huge fragmentation and poor compatibility of different screen sizes. Now is a
little bit better than before in terms of that but the fundamental issue
cannot be fixed from the root core unless the kernel and android jvm are
replaced. Some Googler said "Android system was wrong from the beginning". I
would love to see Fuchsia in real as soon as possible. I've recently learnt
Flutter, which is going to become the primary User interface SDK/framework of
Fuchsia. I recommend you guys to learn Dart and Flutter if you are a UI
developer. Be leaders of them. In a nutshell, Fu[lutter/chsia] is the future
for mobile/embedded developers over the next 30 years in this AI/IoT era.

------
martin1975
I can already hear professor Tanenbaum's evil laughter, followed by "I told
you so" :)

Although for the life of me, I cannot figure out why Google suffers so hard
from NIH syndrome and didn't go with something like seL4/Genode. Do they just
want control of absolutely everything they touch?

~~~
tonfa
I thought they started from an existing microkernel actually.

------
infinity0
Oh so that's what the rust crates fuchsia-zircon and fuchsia-zircon-sys are
for. They are dependencies of the mio and rand crates.

Cargo.toml links to
[https://fuchsia.googlesource.com/garnet/](https://fuchsia.googlesource.com/garnet/)

------
techsin101
Someone please answer this... I want to learn this.

Fuschia is getting swift support Flutter runs on fuschia Flutter uses dart

Do I learn dart or swift, personally I want to learn swift. Flutter only
supports dart??? Fuschia supports swift

Is flutter going to support swift

~~~
Skylled
You can write software for Fuchsia without using Flutter, but Flutter is the
most friendly way at present.

In a basic sense, Flutter is based in Dart, but if you want to call into
another language like Swift, there is a way to do so, called FIDL. I'm not
sure if Swift has FIDL bindings yet, but I'm sure that it and many other
languages will, in time.

Even today Flutter has support for Swift code on iOS the same way it supports
ObjC, via MethodChannels. (This is also true for Java and Kotlin code on
Android.)

~~~
mitochondrion
Have you encountered Julia, and if so, what did you think of it?

~~~
Skylled
Can't say as I have. My expertise centers around Flutter and Fuchsia, for now.

------
robocat
Surely Google are setting themselves up for another $5G EU antitrust fine?

I thought one of the core reasons for the fine was the restriction in the
Mobile Applications Distribution Agreement that a company couldn't develop a
competing OS...

Yet Google is?

Alternatively they will use it as the core for a new "Nexus" line to compete
with Apple, and _not_ licence Fuscia as a platform (avoiding dominance of the
mobile "Platform Market" by doing what Apple are doing).

~~~
rlac16
There was no absolute restriction on developing a competing OS (Samsung does
it with Tizen for example). My understanding is that the restriction was on
forking the Android codebase and shipping an OS based on that without the Play
Store (you would then lose your Play Store license on all devices). Even then
I'm not sure whether it's as strict as that, considering Xiaomi and others do
it.

------
jmull
It sounds very unlikely Fuchsia will replace Android or Chrome OS. They list a
bunch of Android issues, but which of these can’t be addressed more
incrementally through Android?

Google probably needs fewer OSs, not more.

The idea that this is a senior engineer retention project is what actually
makes sense. I think it will probably yield some useful results that can be
harvested for their other systems, or perhaps it can fill a niche not already
well fillled.

------
eej71
Is it fair to describe this as a rewrite from scratch kind of project?

~~~
notatoad
no. it's not a rewrite of android, or (at this point) android-compatible in
any way.

it's a brand new operating system that google is experimenting with.

~~~
gmueckl
It will need some form of compatibility to get a foothold in the market,
though.

~~~
notatoad
From what I can tell, the compatibility plan is to market flutter/dart as a
cross-platform development toolkit for Android and iOS.

Fuchsia won't run android apps, but fuchsia apps will run on Android and iOS.

~~~
oscargrouch
If you check the Zircon repo, you will see that they are backing in a linux
virtualization layer in the kernel, so i imagine they will use that to
bootstrap android linux apps in Fuchsia as a staging process, until android
apps are completely native in a second phase.

Chrome OS already runs Android, so it would be a matter of stitching the
Chrome os shell into Fuchsia to have both running in Fuchsia. First with
virtualization of Linux, and later without it.

------
endlessvoid94
PR piece = "quietly"

------
wpdev_63
I am really surprised Microsoft isn't doing something like this. They are
losing the OS war.

~~~
013a
They are. The fact that HN doesn't follow it just speaks to the anti-Microsoft
bias here. They've had the OneCore project back in 2015-2016 to unify the
kernel and core OS pieces, which was a success and is now powering every
Windows device out there from Xbox to the PC. They have the UWP, their unified
app framework.

They are also working on CShell, which is a unified UI/windowing/compositing
system that will work across PC, Xbox, Mobile, etc.

CShell + OneCore + UWP are essentially becoming part of a "brand new" OS
they're calling Core OS, which will strip the Win32 backward compatibility
requirements and just work with UWP apps, primarily targeted at devices like
phones and low power tablets.

You can search Project Polaris for more information

~~~
JTbane
UWP is dead in the water.

~~~
ahartmetz
10th attempt or so to kill Win32, this time for real!

------
antoinevg
Bwauhahahaha.

------
bitmapbrother
This article seems to have gone through multiple edits to correct all of the
incorrect technical facts, but it looks like they still have work to do.

 _Shifting away from using Linux would help Google’s legal case that its
software isn’t reliant on Oracle._

~~~
abvdasker
_Moving from Linux, though, could have upsides for Google. Android’s use of
the technology, which is distributed by Oracle Corp._

Yeah this is totally wrong.

