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Expanding Fuchsia's open source model

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Re: Expanding Fuchsia's open source model

#231

Post by cmrdporcupine »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #102
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.

> I've heard Fuchsia referred to as a "principal engineer retention project" at Google. No rational company is going to create useless projects just to retain expensive engineers. What's the point in retaining engineers if you're just going to pay them to work on something without expected ROI?

The rationale behind decisions in a BigCorp with very large Other Revenue Sources is entirely different from that of a small company that could be crushed by market forces on a moments notice.

As others have pointed out, the ROI can be something entirely different than $$ in the accounting ledger.

9 years into my BigCorp career and I still find it flabbergasting.

Re: Expanding Fuchsia's open source model

#232

Post by mekkkkkk »

1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #223
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…

"Is Google still primarily an advertising company that tracks its users? Of course." A primary reason why I would choose open over closed source is the ability to avoid ads and tracking. Can the user remove all the phone home nonsense from Fuschia. Of course not. This defeats the purpose of open source for me -- control. With this, I have to share control over the computer with Google.

What's the generate_204 thing? Low effort web searching revealed something about a default path on google services for clients to check network status. Is it more nefarious than that?

Also, please tell me the ":wq" was unintentional.

Re: Expanding Fuchsia's open source model

#233

Post by anp »

gman83 wrote: post #198
com2kid wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No rational company is going to create useless projects just to retain expensive engineers. What's the point in retaining engineers if you're just going to pay them to work on something without expected ROI? (Short) story time! Windows on ARM was a solo pet project of a high level engineer at Microsoft! There are some engineers who are so valuable that letting them spend non-trivial amounts of time on whatever they…

I don't think it's fair to call Windows on ARM an "engineer retention project". They actually released Windows RT and tried very hard to make it work. They still have it going with the Surface Pro X, and they just announced an emulation layer to get x64 applications working on ARM, which if it works well would solve RT's biggest problem, a lack of legacy applications: https://www.neowin.net/news/it039s-official-x64-e…

My possibly incorrect read of GP is that it started as effectively a retention project until someone realized they really wanted it.

Re: Expanding Fuchsia's open source model

#234

Post by est31 »

phh wrote: post #156
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…

Project Treble didn't fix anything (I'm very happy with Project Treble, because it lets me hack stuff I couldn't begin to imagine with 4 yrs ago, but that's just hack). It didn't even fix Nexus/Pixels that still have the same upgrade track record as a Samsung 100$ device. (Pixel 1 and Pixel 2 users, feel free to come and use my Generic System Image, I'll keep upgrading you as long as I can with my bare hands!) ATM OE…

And not just that, Android also severely lags behind upgrading its mainline kernels, so you can't even avoid the issues by upstreaming your drivers. You have to fork them. People get mad at vendors that they don't upstream their drivers but there is currently zero benefit in that. Google should reward vendors for that, and maybe we'll start seeing more drivers upstream.

Re: Expanding Fuchsia's open source model

#235

Post by JayXon »

1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #223
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…

"Is Google still primarily an advertising company that tracks its users? Of course." A primary reason why I would choose open over closed source is the ability to avoid ads and tracking. Can the user remove all the phone home nonsense from Fuschia. Of course not. This defeats the purpose of open source for me -- control. With this, I have to share control over the computer with Google.

generate_204 is used to check if a network has internet connection or need to login at captive portal, not sure about Fuchsia but on Android if you don't want to use google server for that, you can disable the feature or change it to use a different url https://android.stackexchange.com/questions/186993/captive-p...

Apple and Microsoft both have something similar but with their own website, and AFAIK there's no way to change the url on iOS.

Re: Expanding Fuchsia's open source model

#236

Post by lern_too_spel »

peey wrote: post #148
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…

> there's open source alternatives to Play Services that Google neither litigates against nor seems to actively fight against AFAIK these are reverse-engineered. Do you sincerely believe that developers' time is best spent reverse engineering and maintaining play services alts to undo a blockade that Google put in, just to be able to get full freedom over their android derivative? Wouldn't it be better spent in playi…

What freedom are they lacking without Play Services?

Re: Expanding Fuchsia's open source model

#237

Post by young_unixer »

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…

Honesty is the key word.

There's nothing wrong with an open source being controlled by a company or even existing only to privilege a specific company, but it's important not to mislead open source developers into thinking that a project has different objectives than what it has.

Re: Expanding Fuchsia's open source model

#238

Post by sterlind »

bayindirh wrote: post #136
endymi0n wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do we need Krita when we have GIMP? Because every once in a while, it‘s easier to free yourself from the shackles of architectural decisions that were made because of the hardware and constraints of their time that are obsolete now but are supported for legacy reasons. A security model that is designed from scratch into such a deep OS concern as with Fuchsia is one of the aspects that would be next to impossible…

For me, OS research is always good. Experimenting from ground up is even better. But Minix, the hero of the Microkernel research, became the guardian of Intel systems and preventer of tinkering and exploration. Can we certainly say that Fuschia will be Free and mild natured like BSD and Linux or will it become another silent "hard-layer" like Minix? GP (and I) certainly fear about the latter. Given Google's transform…

why did Intel pick Minix, anyway? Licensing or something?

Re: Expanding Fuchsia's open source model

#239

Post by 1vuio0pswjnm7 »

JayXon wrote: post #235
1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Is Google still primarily an advertising company that tracks its users? Of course." A primary reason why I would choose open over closed source is the ability to avoid ads and tracking. Can the user remove all the phone home nonsense from Fuschia. Of course not. This defeats the purpose of open source for me -- control. With this, I have to share control over the computer with Google.

generate_204 is used to check if a network has internet connection or need to login at captive portal, not sure about Fuchsia but on Android if you don't want to use google server for that, you can disable the feature or change it to use a different url https://android.stackexchange.com/questions/186993/captive-p... Apple and Microsoft both have something similar but with their own website, and AFAIK there's no way t…

What I meant was remove the code to make these automatic connections to Google servers from the OS source, re-compile and re-install.

That is what I look for in "open source". If I cannot edit, re-compile and re-install, much of the value to me of "open source" is lost.

Re: Expanding Fuchsia's open source model

#240

Post by zepto »

rhn_mk1 wrote: post #126
snazz wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm guessing that most of these pseudonymous developers—of which there can't possibly be too many—would distrust Google enough not to contribute even if it were easier to do so without a Google Account.

As a pseudonymous developer, I fail to see any harm in contributing to projects run by Google in general. Fuchsia is not a monopolist way to exert control over the market (not today at least), it doesn't seem to be explicitly made for evil, and can be forked to let the community steer it.

Since Fuschia seems to be a replacement for Android, why would you think it isn’t a way for Google to exert control over the market?

As for forking, that option only becomes practical if the community version can muster adequate resources versus the Google controlled version.

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