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How sandboxing works in Fuchsia

fuchsia.googlesource.com

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Re: How sandboxing works in Fuchsia

#41

Post by tyingq »

bitmapbrother wrote: post #31
catern wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>open source platforms Part of the motivation is certainly to get away from the GPL requirements of using Linux, so that Google and its partners can release products to users that have proprietary modifications to the kernel, without giving those same users access to the source code of the kernel. That would of course be a disaster for user autonomy and freedom, but why should Google care about that... Edit: This isn…

>Part of the motivation is certainly to get away from the GPL requirements of using Linux, so that Google and its partners can release products to users that have proprietary modifications to the kernel, without giving those same users access to the source code of the kernel. That would of course be a disaster for user autonomy and freedom, but why should Google care about that... I've heard this argument before with…

Google didn't invent Android though, they bought it. Fast time to market probably trumped all other concerns at the time. This project probably has a less aggressive timeline.

Re: How sandboxing works in Fuchsia

#42

Post by bitmapbrother »

remir wrote: post #13
joshumax wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't say everything I've heard for NDA reasons but I've been under the impression its use is in future resource-constrained IoT devices, which tend to lack a secure, lightweight OS with a unified API. Reverse engineering a certain "smart" nightlight uncovered a minimal Linux 2.6.xx rootfs with telnet open and enabled by default

Take a look at the repo. Fuchsia is an OS for mobile devices. The UI is clearly made for phones, they use the Flutter framework, which was made specifically for mobile app development and can target iOS and Android too.

>Take a look at the repo. Fuchsia is an OS for mobile devices. The UI is clearly made for phones

No it's not. Fuchsia is device agnostic. It's for mobile devices, personal computers, IOT devices, etc. Just because it uses Flutter does not restrict it to mobile devices.

Re: How sandboxing works in Fuchsia

#43

Post by bitmapbrother »

joshumax wrote: post #5
pjjhdog wrote: post #2

So I'm not clear what the puropse of fuchsia is. I understand it's an os which may replace android or chomeos but why the move away from linux based systems? Both are open source platforms.

I can't say everything I've heard for NDA reasons but I've been under the impression its use is in future resource-constrained IoT devices, which tend to lack a secure, lightweight OS with a unified API. Reverse engineering a certain "smart" nightlight uncovered a minimal Linux 2.6.xx rootfs with telnet open and enabled by default

>I can't say everything I've heard for NDA reasons but I've been under the impression its use is in future resource-constrained IoT devices.

I highly doubt that.

"Magenta targets modern phones and modern personal computers with fast processors, non-trivial amounts of ram with arbitrary peripherals doing open ended computation"

Magenta is the name of the Fuchsia kernel.

https://fuchsia.googlesource.com/magenta/+/HEAD/docs/mg_and_...

Re: How sandboxing works in Fuchsia

#44

Post by awordnot »

chii wrote: post #11
awordnot wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does that have to do with Linux though? Surely it's the manufacturer's fault for leaving telnet open and not updating? How would a new OS solve any of these issues?

by making these services an OS level concern, the device manufacturer can't screw anything up anymore.

The OS is going to prevent you from running a userspace telnet daemon? Sounds unlikely.

Re: How sandboxing works in Fuchsia

#45

Post by narrator »

DannyBee wrote: post #24
catern wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>open source platforms Part of the motivation is certainly to get away from the GPL requirements of using Linux, so that Google and its partners can release products to users that have proprietary modifications to the kernel, without giving those same users access to the source code of the kernel. That would of course be a disaster for user autonomy and freedom, but why should Google care about that... Edit: This isn…

"Part of the motivation is certainly to get away from the GPL requirements of using Linux," Certainly why? I know, in fact, this is pretty much a non-consideration, so i'm really curious what makes you believe it is. In fact, the fuchsia kernel is completely open source, so ... If you were to bug the SFLC/others, you'd see Google is, in fact, quite happy releasing kernel changes, and is pretty much one of the only co…

I'm being paranoid here, but would allowing an Apache license let vendors put custom spyware and DRM into the kernel that they wouldn't have to release the source for?

Re: How sandboxing works in Fuchsia

#46

Post by oconnor0 »

joshuamorton wrote: post #33
catern wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then why is it not licensed under the GPL, like Linux?

I'll ask a related question: Why license it under the GPL? What does Google gain? (and what do you gain)

You gain the knowledge that a device running Fuchsia is running code that's publicly available.

Re: How sandboxing works in Fuchsia

#47

Post by bitmapbrother »

tyingq wrote: post #41
bitmapbrother wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Part of the motivation is certainly to get away from the GPL requirements of using Linux, so that Google and its partners can release products to users that have proprietary modifications to the kernel, without giving those same users access to the source code of the kernel. That would of course be a disaster for user autonomy and freedom, but why should Google care about that... I've heard this argument before with…

Google didn't invent Android though, they bought it. Fast time to market probably trumped all other concerns at the time. This project probably has a less aggressive timeline.

I'm not sure what that has to do with it. Apple didn't invent OSX/MacOS either, they bought it from NeXT and then used that base to build iOS. Google bought Android in 2005 so they had plenty of time to switch out kernels if licensing concerns were really a factor for them.

Re: How sandboxing works in Fuchsia

#48

Post by kjksf »

themacguffinman wrote: post #14
pjjhdog wrote: post #2

So I'm not clear what the puropse of fuchsia is. I understand it's an os which may replace android or chomeos but why the move away from linux based systems? Both are open source platforms.

Fuchsia uses a microkernel (Magenta) which is more secure and technically elegant, but usually comes at the cost of performance. Google's position as the primary/sole developer of Fuchsia also gives them the control to build the OS in commercially lucrative ways that don't necessarily earn the approval of the Linux open source community (programming shortcuts, proprietary/non-GPL extensions, etc).

I'm guessing that you think it's a bad thing but I don't quite understand your position.

Is it a new standard that if company develops code, they are morally required to seek "approval of the Linux open source community" ?

Are we applying this standard only to Google, or all companies?

If writing and open-sourcing code under permissive license is bad if it's done without "approval of Linux open source community", then how bad, in comparison, is what e.g. Apple or Microsoft do (not open sourcing iOS or Windows)?

Re: How sandboxing works in Fuchsia

#49

Post by bitmapbrother »

nickpsecurity wrote: post #38
bitmapbrother wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure about QNX, but the lead developers are ex Be, Danger, Palm and Apple.

Thanks for that clarification. That is an interesting mix.

As for QNX, one of its founders, Dan Dodge, is now at Apple.

Re: How sandboxing works in Fuchsia

#50

Post by joshuamorton »

oconnor0 wrote: post #46
joshuamorton wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll ask a related question: Why license it under the GPL? What does Google gain? (and what do you gain)

You gain the knowledge that a device running Fuchsia is running code that's publicly available.

Do you though? Google, as the liscenser is free to keep portions of fuschia under lock and key, so that's not really the case.
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