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Huawei's alternative OS to Android set to roll out as early as fall

androidpolice.com

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Re: Huawei's alternative OS to Android set to roll out as early as fall

#31

Post by djsumdog »

I really hope this happens and that it's not just an ASOP fork and is successful outside of China. It'd be great to have a real, third, alternative operating system that has major support. I'm sick of both Android and eyeProducts.

KDE Plasma is supported on barely anything. PostmarketOS is doing amazing stuff; very commendable -- but we still don't have usable OSS drivers for any mobile radios. I honestly liked Microsoft's mobile offering and wish they didn't totally screw that up. HP has essentially killed off Palm/WebOS.

Anyone who's making a real attempt at a 3rd major mobile OS is commendable.

Re: Huawei's alternative OS to Android set to roll out as early as fall

#34

Post by dspillett »

maeln wrote: post #2

> It will work with Android apps and web apps as well I guess it is fair to assume at this point that they based it on the OSS part of Android ? Let's see if they manage to solve the Play Service pickle also. A lot of application assume you have them, I don't know if a lot of dev' are going to repackage their app "play-service" free for one vendor (wouldn't be surprising for popular app tho').

> I don't know if a lot of dev' are going to repackage their app "play-service" free

Don't many already for Amazon's store? Or does Amazon's store usually get used along-side Google's Play Store and/or have some sort of compatibility shim?

> for one vendor (wouldn't be surprising for popular app tho').

Huawei is a reasonably significant manufacturer though, and other Chinese manufacturers may get on-board (even if they don't have to now, as a precautionary measure in case that changes) and if they end up offering handsets cheaper with the new OS than Android people might buy them in significant numbers.

And if it is easy to package for this new OS as well as Android, i.e. there are minimal or no changes needed to the main app code just extra steps in the build process, devs might support it because the effort is small so why lock yourself out of a market?

They may also just stop using Play specific things, if losing what-ever benefit they offer is deemed less hassle than maintaining the extra build.

Re: Huawei's alternative OS to Android set to roll out as early as fall

#35

Post by rqs »

djsumdog wrote: post #31

I really hope this happens and that it's not just an ASOP fork and is successful outside of China. It'd be great to have a real, third, alternative operating system that has major support. I'm sick of both Android and eyeProducts. KDE Plasma is supported on barely anything. PostmarketOS is doing amazing stuff; very commendable -- but we still don't have usable OSS drivers for any mobile radios. I honestly liked Micro…

As far as I know, it's a Linux fork[0], and capable to run Android app.

More information can be found using keyword "Hongmeng OS".

[0] https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%B8%BF%E8%92%99 (No English version)

Re: Huawei's alternative OS to Android set to roll out as early as fall

#37

Post by Mikeb85 »

azinman2 wrote: post #18

>“It will work with Android apps and web apps as well — an Android app recompiled for Huawei's OS is said to perform 60% faster.” So they’ve been sitting on this magical OS that somehow is compatible yet way faster than Android... that also runs everywhere? Why haven’t they released it then until now?

https://www.gizmochina.com/2019/04/15/here-are-the-cool-feat...

> Huawei is known for innovations and the new EMUI 9.1 is stuffed with several new features worthy of note. Among them, the most striking is Huawei’s new self-developed system performance innovation tool – EROFS (Super File System) and Ark compiler.

> The Ark Compiler brings support for architecture level optimizations resulting in significant performance improvements. It will make the Android system more responsive and robust against different actions. Yu reveals that the new compiler can improve system fluency by 24%, system response by 44% and enhance operations of third-party apps by 60%. It will further strengthen multitasking by optimizing several processes and resulting in better speed and performance. Improved battery performance, faster execution speeds and compatibility across all new Android devices term Ark as the best alternative for ART (Android Runtime).

Tldr - they built an alternative to Dalvik and ART that's quicker, and they were going to release it for Android even if all this didn't happen.

Re: Huawei's alternative OS to Android set to roll out as early as fall

#38

Post by analognoise »

rhamzeh wrote: post #22
tantalor wrote: post #17

If AOSP is legally controlled by Google, despite being open-source, how can Hauwei legally sell a phone in the US derived from AOSP without violating the import ban? Does the import ban not include free software? That seems like an oversight that would be quickly and easily corrected.

If you put restrictions on free software, isn't it then by definition non-free?

You can violate things like ITAR with open source, and the ITAR rules will take precedence.

There are a lot of ways you can restrict FOSS software - even fully FLOSS DOD codes are not supposed to be obtainable from places like Iran and North Korea.

Re: Huawei's alternative OS to Android set to roll out as early as fall

#39

Post by Theodores »

oever wrote: post #25

Will Chinese manufacturers also be prohibited from using Windows?

There is silence from Microsoft, including a silent removal of Huawei laptops from their retail offerings.

Fingers crossed, there will be an Ubuntu (South African) version of a high end laptop coming soon. Not sure what the CPU will be for that though.

Re: Huawei's alternative OS to Android set to roll out as early as fall

#40

Post by pergadad »

tantalor wrote: post #17

If AOSP is legally controlled by Google, despite being open-source, how can Hauwei legally sell a phone in the US derived from AOSP without violating the import ban? Does the import ban not include free software? That seems like an oversight that would be quickly and easily corrected.

Google has no contractual way to prevent someone from using software released under a fully open license. Therefore the US gov has no way of forcing Google to do something they simply can't do.
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