Expanding Fuchsia's open source model • Hacker News Board

Re: Expanding Fuchsia's open source model

#21

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Dec 08, 2020, 5:54 PM UTC

hollerith wrote: post #15

brandmeyer wrote: post #10

Looks like you still cannot contribute without granting copyright ownership to Google. In turn, GOOG licenses it out under a BSD (or BSD-like) license. This is a big difference relative to Linux, and its part of why Linux works so well as a collaboration between competitors. The GPL's copyleft acts as a joint development agreement between equals. IMO, Fuchsia's model only works well for integration partners that are…

ADDED. Looks like this comment and its replies have no relevance to the Fuchsia project: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25348935 You used to not be able to contribute to most GNU projects (maybe you still can't) without assigning copyright ownership to the FSF. I don't see what practical difference the assignment to Google will make. Without using the words "equality", "between equals" and "sharecropper", can y…

[deleted]

Re: Expanding Fuchsia's open source model

#22

Post by CogitoCogito » Tue, Dec 08, 2020, 5:56 PM UTC

hollerith wrote: post #15

brandmeyer wrote: post #10

Looks like you still cannot contribute without granting copyright ownership to Google. In turn, GOOG licenses it out under a BSD (or BSD-like) license. This is a big difference relative to Linux, and its part of why Linux works so well as a collaboration between competitors. The GPL's copyleft acts as a joint development agreement between equals. IMO, Fuchsia's model only works well for integration partners that are…

ADDED. Looks like this comment and its replies have no relevance to the Fuchsia project: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25348935 You used to not be able to contribute to most GNU projects (maybe you still can't) without assigning copyright ownership to the FSF. I don't see what practical difference the assignment to Google will make. Without using the words "equality", "between equals" and "sharecropper", can y…

If I want to distribute derivative works of the Linux kernel, I need to release those works to all. My competitors can take advantage of this, but in the end they are bound by similar rules. This produces a feedback loop in which contributions back may be used by everyone under pretty much equal terms.

If you assign your copyright to Google, they may make use of those changes and integrate them into further development and then _not_ release those changes or release those changes under another license. Do you see the practical difference now?

Re: Expanding Fuchsia's open source model

#23

Post by abarth » Tue, Dec 08, 2020, 5:57 PM UTC

brandmeyer wrote: post #10

Looks like you still cannot contribute without granting copyright ownership to Google. In turn, GOOG licenses it out under a BSD (or BSD-like) license. This is a big difference relative to Linux, and its part of why Linux works so well as a collaboration between competitors. The GPL's copyleft acts as a joint development agreement between equals. IMO, Fuchsia's model only works well for integration partners that are…

> Looks like you still cannot contribute without granting copyright ownership to Google

That is not accurate. Fuchsia uses the standard Google CLA:

"You do not surrender ownership of your contribution, and you do not give up any of your rights to use your contribution elsewhere."

https://cla.developers.google.com/about

Re: Expanding Fuchsia's open source model

#24

Post by brandmeyer » Tue, Dec 08, 2020, 5:58 PM UTC

hollerith wrote: post #19

brandmeyer wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Linux itself has never been a GNU project and has never required copyright assignment. It is the combination of features (retain ownership and GPL) together that has enabled collaboration in Linux.

Are you saying that collaboration on Gnu Compiler Collection, binutils, bash, bison, CLISP, coreutils, etc, has been inhibited by the requirement for copyright assignment to the FSF?

There's a big difference between GNU and Linux in terms of their collaboration. With the exception of GCC, most of the utilities you named have been maintained by a very small group of people.

GCC itself has definitely been inhibited by the copyright assignment. There have been a few different ports that were not upstreamed specifically because of the CLA. AVR32 and C6000 come to mind off the top of my head.

Re: Expanding Fuchsia's open source model

#25

Post by moron4hire » Tue, Dec 08, 2020, 5:58 PM UTC

mmastrac wrote: post #16

outside1234 wrote: post #11

That is the most hideous source control system ever. Do they really need to be developer hostile just because Github is owned by Microsoft? I mean seriously, who has time to commit to a project with a random set of tooling.

Welcome to the world of Building Large Google Projects. This is somewhat painful in the Android and Dart/Flutter world. I haven't tried building Chromium yet but I'm sure it's just as complex.

Yeah, I've tried building Chromium on my own before. Chromium's build process is so inscrutable and changes so often that several Googlers I've talked to have said you can't really do it without handholding from another Googler in-the-know.

Re: Expanding Fuchsia's open source model

#26

Post by hollerith » Tue, Dec 08, 2020, 5:59 PM UTC

CogitoCogito wrote: post #22

hollerith wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ADDED. Looks like this comment and its replies have no relevance to the Fuchsia project: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25348935 You used to not be able to contribute to most GNU projects (maybe you still can't) without assigning copyright ownership to the FSF. I don't see what practical difference the assignment to Google will make. Without using the words "equality", "between equals" and "sharecropper", can y…

If I want to distribute derivative works of the Linux kernel, I need to release those works to all. My competitors can take advantage of this, but in the end they are bound by similar rules. This produces a feedback loop in which contributions back may be used by everyone under pretty much equal terms. If you assign your copyright to Google, they may make use of those changes and integrate them into further developme…

You are describing the difference between the GPL and BSD-like licenses.

You have not said anything about the difference between a BSD-like license with copyright remaining with the contributors versus BSD-like license with copyright assigned to Google.

Re: Expanding Fuchsia's open source model

#27

Post by abarth » Tue, Dec 08, 2020, 5:59 PM UTC

mmastrac wrote: post #4

I've heard Fuchsia referred to as a "principal engineer retention project" at Google. I'd be curious to know if others have heard the same.

As a principal software engineer that works on Fuchsia, I can assure you that the project does not exist solely to retain me. :)

Re: Expanding Fuchsia's open source model

#28

Post by bun_at_work » Tue, Dec 08, 2020, 6:00 PM UTC

torben-friis wrote: post #3

I'm still not clear on what fuchsia is trying to be - or more specifically, why is Google developing it. What is the end goal here, from a business perspective?

I remember reading a couple years ago that the goal is IoT devices. It runs on the Zircon kernel, which is a true microkernel (as I remember, haven't been paying attention recently). This is pretty ideal for IoT, since manufacturers should be able to spin up only as much OS as they need on top of the Zircon kernel.

Fuchsia specifically is looking to be a full-fledged OS, I think, for devices like Chromebooks or similar. I think they expect to get Fuchsia to a place where it can run Android apps natively, then put out an OS that can run native apps, Android apps, etc, all while being tied in to Google's services.

This is definitely some speculation, but that's what I'm seeing so far.

Re: Expanding Fuchsia's open source model

#29

Post by bun_at_work » Tue, Dec 08, 2020, 6:01 PM UTC

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #14

outside1234 wrote: post #11

That is the most hideous source control system ever. Do they really need to be developer hostile just because Github is owned by Microsoft? I mean seriously, who has time to commit to a project with a random set of tooling.

Google uses GitHub for a bunch of things, I suspect it is more that the people working on it want to use Google's internal tooling as much as possible, and public user experience is considered less important than that.

This is the right answer. Google has tons of internal tooling and libraries and frameworks that are all just internal to Google.

Re: Expanding Fuchsia's open source model

#30

Post by jacobush » Tue, Dec 08, 2020, 6:03 PM UTC

abarth wrote: post #27

mmastrac wrote: post #4

I've heard Fuchsia referred to as a "principal engineer retention project" at Google. I'd be curious to know if others have heard the same.

As a principal software engineer that works on Fuchsia, I can assure you that the project does not exist solely to retain me. :)

... but also your colleagues?