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Google is officially releasing Fuchsia OS, starting with a first-gen Nest Hub

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Re: Google is officially releasing Fuchsia OS, starting with a first-gen Nest Hub

#281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never understood the desire to control systems by speaking to them in code words. Speaking monopolizes a shared channel, requires diverting your conversation, and is really slow. For practically anything that involves using code words to tell the computer what to do there are better input methods, like physical switches, or purely automated. This is slightly off-topic, but in your opinion what are some of the re…

Cooking. My hands might be occupied or dirty etc, but I need to set or change a timer.

Yep. Cooking is what I use Alexa for. The main control is homeassistant, but it forwards some lights to Alexa for me to control ober voice.

Re: Google is officially releasing Fuchsia OS, starting with a first-gen Nest Hub

#282
post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's clearly not what I said. I was responding directly to my parent comment which said we should try to separate a work from the context in which it operates. It was not a value statement on Fuchsia OS, anyone who worked on it, or anyone on Google. It was simply a statement on separating work from the context in which it operates.

>It was not a value statement on Fuchsia OS, anyone who worked on it, or anyone on Google. This thread is about Fuchsia OS - so you're separating your statement from the context in which it operates?

It's clear you're not engaging in good faith, I won't be continuing this conversation.

Re: Google is officially releasing Fuchsia OS, starting with a first-gen Nest Hub

#283
post #193
post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is how the Honeywell stuff seems to work, at least for my thermostat. As long as there is some local wifi, thermostat and controlling unit will work, even if you cannot contact them from the internet.

What happens if power goes out, the units stop working if WiFi isn't on a UPS? This would definitely be a problem in cold climates where a dead furnace could lead to frozen and burst pipes.

In my case: No power would mean I have nothing to control anyway. The only reason my local network is down would be my power down. That happened twice in the last 16 years.

Re: Google is officially releasing Fuchsia OS, starting with a first-gen Nest Hub

#284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is seL4: https://sel4.systems/ The resources going into seL4 appear to be nowhere near "similar effort" to what Google is putting into Fuchsia, but it is a legitimate alternative.

Sadly CSIRO axed entire seL4 team, "to focus on AI".

Sadly yes, but it only happened after seL4 Foundation[0] was established, and thus seL4 became independent from CSIRO.

[0]: https://sel4.systems/

Re: Google is officially releasing Fuchsia OS, starting with a first-gen Nest Hub

#285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Fuchsia provides a stable binary interface (like Windows, but unlike Linux). Linux does provide a stable binary interface, to userspace . > eg. binary drivers from a hardware manufacturer that wouldn't provide updates for them anymore That can be seen as much as a downside as an upside, because it makes life a lot easier for hardware manufacturers to ship more binary blobs

> That can be seen as much as a downside as an upside, because it makes life a lot easier for hardware manufacturers to ship more binary blobs Which is essentially the point of this approach for Google, to exert greater control.

I dont know about that. The Linux/GPL model has had mixed success in the embedded space - most vendors still ship their code as binary blobs making it difficult or impossible to update the LInux kernel, which has security and other implications. But, there have been some vendors embracing the open source model to some extent at least, and a lot of third party work in supporting upstream kernel development of drivers.

I dont think it would be fair to call Fuchsia a step backwards in this respect - vendors that ship closed source binaries for Fuchsia are almost certainly shipping closed source binaries for Linux as well.

Re: Google is officially releasing Fuchsia OS, starting with a first-gen Nest Hub

#286
post #222
post #97

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Any pointers to any hardware / dev boards that one can run fuchsia on? I remember seeing Intel NUCs being used in the past, is there a recommended hardware configuration for developers now?

https://fuchsia.dev/fuchsia-src/development/hardware/intel_n... describes which NUCs are known to work.

Thank you!

Re: Google is officially releasing Fuchsia OS, starting with a first-gen Nest Hub

#287
post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's so much here that I don't really know where to start. Maybe some history could be useful? When Chrome came along, the dominant browser was Internet Explorer 7. It had been out for two years when Chrome 1.0 was released. Before IE7, the world ran IE6 for five years. Web development was largely stagnant. That was the world that Chrome came into. Before DRM support was added to browsers, you needed to install pl…

And so, the web has just switched hands from one behemoth to another. Nothing has changed since then. Now everyone depends on Chromium for almost everything. That is the point. The alternatives have no chance in doing anything about it. Firefox is entirely dependent on Google for funding (and has been for years), Microsoft recently switched to Chromium for Edge and Safari is again years behind (Just like IE.). There…

> Nothing has changed since then.

There's a massive difference. Back then you had a single company that kinda-sorta didn't care about the web. They already had an application platform they were happy with. There wasn't really an incentive for them to evolve it once they had the dominant position. The web was stagnating for years.

Nowadays we actually have multiple players that are very active in the development of the web. The situation is not at all comparable.

> So let's sit back and just watch Google continuously adding more superfluous features into the Web like Web(USB, Bluetooth, NFC, etc) and the web-devs will force you to use Chrome again

Superfluous to you. If developers are using it, then it's obviously filling some need. What do you say to developers who are asking for those features? "Sorry, that's not compatible with my idea of what the web is. Go write a {Windows,Linux,MacOs} application and tell your users to download it".

It always comes back to this. People want progress in the areas they care about, but no progress in other areas.

Re: Google is officially releasing Fuchsia OS, starting with a first-gen Nest Hub

#289
post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because then work just becomes a more boring riff on the Nuremberg defense. You can't just be like "I'm just paid to write code and so will completely ignore any and all ethical issues with what my company does with it." There's a reason the ACM code of ethics has "everyone is a stakeholder" and "avoid harm" as the top two overriding principles. I can understand arguments about keeping political issues unrelated to y…

>Because then work just becomes a more boring riff on the Nuremberg defense. Writing code to build Fuchsia OS does not involve great violations of morality and ethics that call out for something like the 'Nuremberg defense'. >I can understand arguments about keeping political issues unrelated to your work and working relationships out but you this isn't that. Where's the dividing line? Wasn't it Basecamp that had a l…

You’re doing exactly what you condemn in your post. I said a boring riff specifically because I wanted to highlight that there’s a huge magnitude difference while being able to use the most common term for the particular line of reasoning.

You’re right, writing an OS for Google isn’t some world shaking ethical conundrum and it certainly wouldn’t be enough to turn down a FAANG salary and the experience for. But that doesn’t mean that the company’s corporate strategy for the product (i.e. the entire reason the project is funded) is suddenly irrelevant and you can wash your hands of it. If the business reason for pushing this OS is so that Google can have a desktop OS with lock-in to their services and have data collection at the deepest level like they do with Android then that doesn’t meet the bar for avoiding harm and that as engineers we ought to be empowered to push back or outright say no to to buildings things that hurt our users.

Nothing about this has anything to do with Israel or Pizzagate, or Black Lives Matter. Politics encompasses far far more than the things you see on CNN. I’m not saying that people should be advocating for random political causes they care about in the workplace. I’m saying that people should be able to act politically for things that are literally their work.

* Pushing for accessibility features being a requirement to ship is political.

* Pushing for telemetry to be anonymized is political.

* Pushing for ML datasets to include people with dark skin so they actually work is political.

* Pushing for data collection being opt-in is political.

* Refusing to build a product that interferes with EMT radio frequencies is political.

Re: Google is officially releasing Fuchsia OS, starting with a first-gen Nest Hub

#290
according to ars technica [1] they removed the ui layer from the repo... is that accurate and does that mean we are in for a macos type situation where the real treasure (the ui bits) are locked away?

[1] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/05/google-launches-its-...

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