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Expanding Fuchsia's open source model

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Re: Expanding Fuchsia's open source model

#181

Post by dhodell »

barnacled wrote: post #167

I am a Linux kernel contributor and former golang and chromium contributor and to be honest the latter experiences makes me leary about contributing to another Google project. There generally tends to be an insular 'cathedral' rather than 'bazaar' approach to Google projects where those working for the company get considerably more say and control than outside contributors. The whole issue I have with it is that they…

It's kind of unfortunate because existing developers have the privilege of experience with the systems and where they're going that external contributors simply don't have, and it will take a non-trivial amount time for interested parties to develop that knowledge.

At the same time, it is an active project with active development that are informed by goals and processes not all of which are open. And really, while the development has been "in the open", it hasn't engaged the public until now. To that end, it's not possible to engage in a "bazaar" approach off the bat, whether or not that's a goal of the project.

Having been active in Go development and seeing some of the issues there, I understand what you mean. I don't think we state anywhere "this is clearly a cathedral model of development", but I think we're pretty clear on it:

* We have a section of documentation on project governance https://fuchsia.dev/fuchsia-src/contribute/governance

* We have a section of documentation detailing different kinds of contributors, acknowledging that there are kinds of contributors with special powers, and also reserving the right to revoke contribution privileges in some cases: https://fuchsia.dev/fuchsia-src/contribute/community/contrib...

To the extent that you can look at these as a set of policies, follow all the policies, submit a change, and have that change rejected, I think that is unfortunate. I think this is much less likely if you first engage with the stakeholders, and having opened up mailing lists, we've made it simpler to do that.

However, the "bazaar" is also a bit of a myth in this regard. I'm not really aware of any open source projects where I can go submit a PR without talking to anybody and have the expectation that it'll be merged without discussion. I can fork the repo, but that's also already the case with Fuchsia.

> the fact they are only now taking potential contributions

We were honest about this too, and our documentation used to explicitly say that we did not accept external contributions.

Re: Expanding Fuchsia's open source model

#182

Post by swiley »

205g0 wrote: post #65

OT: Just a second ago, I was setting up unattended-upgrades for security updates for a new Ubuntu box and I am once again puzzled why the largest Linux distribution has such an underwhelming UX for an crucial feature. Long story short, I welcome any new contender in the OS space.

OT indeed, this is about a kernel and you're asking for a userspace feature.

Also, there are large number of "contenders" in the Linux based OS space which may have the UX you want, and if there isn't one this sort of thing tends to be pretty easy to tweak and suggest changes for (unlike in most of Google's OSes.)

Re: Expanding Fuchsia's open source model

#183

Post by [deleted] »

e12e wrote: post #139
205g0 wrote: post #65

OT: Just a second ago, I was setting up unattended-upgrades for security updates for a new Ubuntu box and I am once again puzzled why the largest Linux distribution has such an underwhelming UX for an crucial feature. Long story short, I welcome any new contender in the OS space.

What's underwhelming about?: sudo apt install unattended-upgrades

[deleted]

Re: Expanding Fuchsia's open source model

#184

Post by gowld »

jasonvorhe wrote: post #123

I don't understand the cynicism here. Android's fragmentation was the original sin that lead to fragmentation and the new that we've seen for years, until Google semi-fixed the mess with a) Play Services (short term) and b) Project Treble. Google were so convinced of the value of open source that they didn't anticipate that almost all OEM's would rather ship their Android forks than to stay close to upstream. If they…

"evil" is a non-sensical model. Corporations are amoral.

Re: Expanding Fuchsia's open source model

#185

Post by dhodell »

205g0 wrote: post #65

OT: Just a second ago, I was setting up unattended-upgrades for security updates for a new Ubuntu box and I am once again puzzled why the largest Linux distribution has such an underwhelming UX for an crucial feature. Long story short, I welcome any new contender in the OS space.

Maybe our section on packages will be of interest to you: https://fuchsia.dev/fuchsia-src/concepts/packages/package

Re: Expanding Fuchsia's open source model

#186

Post by dhodell »

bla3 wrote: post #73

> It has support for a limited set of x64-based hardware Did anyone get it to run on a raspberry pi yet? There has to be _some_ arm support...

There is not a RPi port, and that's non-trivial for reasons I vaguely recall to be related to display driver weirdness. The system does run on arm64le.

Re: Expanding Fuchsia's open source model

#187

Post by sto_hristo »

outworlder wrote: post #110

> Fuchsia is a long-term project to create a general-purpose, open source operating system Why do we need this? We have Linux. It works. It is open-source, general purpose. It needs more support to become more mainstream (like what Valve has done with Proton). Don't like Linux? Start with one of the BSDs. Heck, start with Haiku. Any of these projects are lightyears ahead of anything that's just starting. The most lik…

We don't need it, we don't need anything at all really. But when* google turns it into reality everyone is either going to embrace it or it will fail like MS's arm attempt. If it succeeds, we'd all be like - "This is exactly what we needed!" But then we will realize it's just different bone structure under the same skin. Skin being metaphor for a highly locked down and centrally controlled ad delivery platform that doesn't let users truly own their paid for devices.

* - considering google's software mortality rate, i am skeptical of anything new and daring getting enough time to mature. It will be google plus'd.

Re: Expanding Fuchsia's open source model

#188

Post by gowld »

abarth wrote: post #64
wmf wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since you're here, "abarth", it took me several clicks to get to the OWNERS file and all I saw was a list of email addresses. Calling that "governance" is... could we at least get some names and maybe brief bios on these people?

I understand where you're coming from, but that ends up being an inclusion issue in the project. I'm comfortable having my name and bio "out there" on the Internet, but I recognize that's a privilege. Not everyone who contributes to the project will be comfortable doing that.

The Eng Council is 5 people in a position of governance, not everyone who contributes.

Re: Expanding Fuchsia's open source model

#189

Post by barnacled »

dhodell wrote: post #181
barnacled wrote: post #167

I am a Linux kernel contributor and former golang and chromium contributor and to be honest the latter experiences makes me leary about contributing to another Google project. There generally tends to be an insular 'cathedral' rather than 'bazaar' approach to Google projects where those working for the company get considerably more say and control than outside contributors. The whole issue I have with it is that they…

It's kind of unfortunate because existing developers have the privilege of experience with the systems and where they're going that external contributors simply don't have, and it will take a non-trivial amount time for interested parties to develop that knowledge. At the same time, it is an active project with active development that are informed by goals and processes not all of which are open. And really, while th…

The real question is, moving forward, if somebody submits a proposal, properly tested, described and discussed with the community that makes a fundamental or deeper change whether that is likely to be accepted or not.

The bazaar certainly exists for the Linux kernel insomuch that this can and does happen (partly as a result of the fact many companies contribute but none control it). For go it does not, for chromium it does not seem to either.

It is tough for a company with internal aims and pressure to adhere to that kind of model for sure.

And it is good you have been honest about your approach prior to this in that no contributions were taken but now it is a matter of whether or not a non Googler has the opportunity to make such a change, in accordance with your policies.

But obviously as a hobbyist with limited free time I am understandably cautious as to where I put my effort.

Honestly on a personal level it is probably no loss on fuschia's part, I am a minor contributor at best, but the general point stands.

Re: Expanding Fuchsia's open source model

#190

Post by barnacled »

jeffrallen wrote: post #176
barnacled wrote: post #167

I am a Linux kernel contributor and former golang and chromium contributor and to be honest the latter experiences makes me leary about contributing to another Google project. There generally tends to be an insular 'cathedral' rather than 'bazaar' approach to Google projects where those working for the company get considerably more say and control than outside contributors. The whole issue I have with it is that they…

I'm a longtime Go watcher, and sometime Go contributor and I agree with this, 100%. Go has benefitted from having a BDFL employed by Google. But outsiders will always be outsiders.

While I think Russ is brilliant and deeply qualified for that role, his BDFL position differs considerably from that of e.g. Guido (well pre resignation) or Linus in that he is considerably more 'D' than either of them.

And probably that works well for go and keeps a very clear philosophy and style for the language. It is just the fact they very blatantly misled the community on the scope of possible contributions that frustrates me.

Fuschia does, in all fairness, appear to be considerably more honest on these issues.

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