I'm sorry but his "proof" is mostly just puns. Sometimes OSS projects are given pun names simply for laughs, not because of some deeper meaning. No doubt Google is researching new OSs, View Managers and development frameworks. (Every company that large does.) But I think it's too early to call it a potential successor; architecture takes a long time to change.
I thought google would do something like this. They didn't want to fully embrace linux so they locked all the freedom of linux away behind restrictrions in android until they had a replacement and now they are going to try to drop gnu+linux anything GPL they can... The new kernel is MIT/BSD... Welcome to Tivoization all over again. I get the need for a better kernel, the gnu+linux kernel is out of control at over 14m…
I don't understand the dangers of BSD style licenses, can you expand on that a bit please?
The danger is that it can return to closed source at any time.
Again this blog? Seems we have also fake news problems here on HN. This is all fairy tale speculating for me. And I don't believe his sources. And btw: Tizen is also based on Linux. You don't build that easy a Kernel replacement.
That's not what 'fake news' means. It's perfectly clear the piece is speculative and it does not intentionally deceive (even if it turns out to be completely wrong).
I find it hard to believe that 8+ years of APIs and OS level code would be abandoned just like that, especially given the scale of Android. If this ever happens, it would probably be an extremely slow, well thought out (hopefully), well documented (also hopefully) rollout.
They've already replaced Dalvik with ART for bytecode and it was mostly transparent from what I understood.
But popping up with a completely new platform API without any backwards compatibility would be very bold and risky. There would have to be a good compatibility story there.
Also there is talk in the article about a POSIX layer. Now that's easier said than done. But it is Google we are talking about so they certainly have the manpower and resources to try.
I find it hard to believe that 8+ years of APIs and OS level code would be abandoned just like that, especially given the scale of Android. If this ever happens, it would probably be an extremely slow, well thought out (hopefully), well documented (also hopefully) rollout.
That's what I'm saying :) An (extremely) gradual phase-out of the Android API.
I'm not sure the API can ever really be phased out due to the vast amount of legacy apps and libraries.
Besides I'm sure a lot of developers wouldn't be happy that their domain knowledge just went flying through the window. Even if that is a risk inherent in the job.
I don't understand the dangers of BSD style licenses, can you expand on that a bit please?
This is a pretty simplistic explanation, but the BSD license doesn't require you to provide the source to customers. Essentially the argument is that companies will consume FOSS software without contributing back improvements to the determent of the community.
Isn't that really the norm now with hosted applications, if I patch nginx on my server there is no obligation to create a pull request.
I find it hard to believe that 8+ years of APIs and OS level code would be abandoned just like that, especially given the scale of Android. If this ever happens, it would probably be an extremely slow, well thought out (hopefully), well documented (also hopefully) rollout.
They've already replaced Dalvik with ART for bytecode and it was mostly transparent from what I understood. But popping up with a completely new platform API without any backwards compatibility would be very bold and risky. There would have to be a good compatibility story there. Also there is talk in the article about a POSIX layer. Now that's easier said than done. But it is Google we are talking about so they cert…
It isn't too hard to do Linux ABI emulation. The interface there has mostly been stable for the last several years. That would enable just using the same userspace as Linux distributions like Android.
I find it hard to believe that 8+ years of APIs and OS level code would be abandoned just like that, especially given the scale of Android. If this ever happens, it would probably be an extremely slow, well thought out (hopefully), well documented (also hopefully) rollout.
Exactly. This sort of switch seems for me also a good way to increase the amount of bugs by a large scale. It may only work for very specific hardware I think.
Job security and Apple-ish custom OS may long-term reduce support burden because Linux is like OpenSSL: a giant refrigerator, stove, oven, typewriter, glass kiln, laundromat kitchen-sink. It will take a very long time to reinvent the wheel and also deliver a PG "quantum of improvement," but there are plenty of Alphabet employees to do it. Also, similar Apple, it's an OS they control so there's less rejection / ignorning of Google's desired direction as with FLOSS.