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Huawei replaces Android with HarmonyOS, which is also Android

arstechnica.com

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Re: Huawei replaces Android with HarmonyOS, which is also Android

#191

Post by indymike »

roenxi wrote: post #142
indymike wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Android is basically a Google anti-privacy play. Nope. Android is a mobile OS and is pretty well done versus the many other oses it replaced. > Western IP law is arguably just a tool to delay Chinese progress (speaking from an international perspective) I'm pretty sure IP law wasn't created to "slow down Chinese progress". It is there to provide an incentive for invention and creativity. The whole point is to grant…

IP law favours incumbents. Ignoring IP law has been the fastest way to secure Chinese prosperity, and that is what they did. It makes sense and it doesn't tell us how a Chinese company will treat their customers. Note that despite the argument that IP law promotes invention and creativity Huawei is a world leading tech innovator in 4G. Despite obviously having little respect for IP law. They'll probably discover the…

> IP law favours incumbents.

Yes, that is the whole point. IP gives an inventor a reward in the form of limited or no competition for a period of time.

> it doesn't tell us how a Chinese company will treat their customers.

This is like saying your wearing the wrong running shoes to swim five miles.

Re: Huawei replaces Android with HarmonyOS, which is also Android

#192

Post by b112 »

swiley wrote: post #84
b112 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe this is the wrong way to put it. Personal computing never existed for the average consumer. The computing market was filled with hobbiests, specialists, and those needing a computer for some task. EG, authors typing manuscripts (part time work?). Since then, the average consumer bought phones with extra fluff on it. They use it as toys, gimmicky things. During that time of the average consumer buying phones…

Consumers had PCs for a while before smartphones became popular.

Yes for 30+ years.

But not the average consumer.

Re: Huawei replaces Android with HarmonyOS, which is also Android

#193

Post by pphysch »

A shamefully ignorant article that--like many of the comments here--utterly misses the technical value of HarmonyOS, which I was able to glean in 5 minutes from looking at the official documentation.

Check out the architecture diagram on this page: https://developer.harmonyos.com/en/docs/documentation/doc-gu...

HarmonyOS is evidently not a peer competitor with Android or iOS, but a further abstraction layer above these traditional mobile OS. This is obvious in the fact that HarmonyOS has a "kernel abstraction layer" which supports Linux (Android), LiteOS, etc. The heart of HarmonyOS is not in the particular terminal UI or kernel, but in everything in between--specifically the DSoftBus (from "dbus"?) which ostensibly enables first-class distributed computing across devices.

Based on this basic info, HarmonyOS should be viewed more as a "meta OS", which has been bootstrapped by existing OS-as-backend, Android Linux in the context of phones/tablets, but is not strictly dependent on Android Linux.

Smearing Huawei for this technical approach is like smearing Python as a "C clone" or Clojure as a "Lisp or JVM clone". It's shamefully ignorant.

Re: Huawei replaces Android with HarmonyOS, which is also Android

#194

Post by TeMPOraL »

WanderPanda wrote: post #188
TeMPOraL wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How is this even an argument, given that patents expire? These days, many patented technologies expire faster than patents on them. In those cases, patents are quite literally halting progress.

Wait, are you saying that because technological progress is too fast, technological progress is slow?

Yes. It's because technological progress is fast in general, halting a particular avenue of development down can cause it to never be pursued again.

Technological progress isn't a line, it's a graph. Someone patents an invention and decides to sit on it, and by the time the patent expires, the entire technological environment has shifted around in a way which makes that invention worthless, and follow-up work unlikely to happen. Whereas, were it not for that patent, the invention would had people extending it further, perhaps generating even more immediately useful technologies.

In this way, a patent - in particular, a defensive patent, taken to prevent anyone from developing a technology that endangers your business - is closing off avenues of progress.

Re: Huawei replaces Android with HarmonyOS, which is also Android

#195

Post by dang »

throwaway4good wrote: post #56
dang wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks - that seems more informative than the corporate page, so I've switched the URL from https://consumer.huawei.com/en/harmonyos/ .

It is also kinda biased and just stuck at the old this just a copy of Android record. For example the release notes mentions a new JS UI framework at the OS level with the potential to replace Android Java completely. Had Google or Apple done this it would be sitting pretty on the hn front page for days. Here it is just ignored in the politics of Huawei.

You may well be right; I don't know any of the details. The problem is that there don't seem to be any good URLs, by which I mean ones that would provide a good basis for objective, interesting discussion. Maybe one will turn up.

Re: Huawei replaces Android with HarmonyOS, which is also Android

#196

Post by scsilver »

em500 wrote: post #144
Lio wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that, in general, when a company doesn't respect intellectual property laws or obviously makes use of industrial espionage (and I'm not suggesting either is true for Huawei) they are sending a clear signal that laws do not apply to them. So as a customer why would I trust any company with my most personal health, banking or own intellectual property if that company sees no reasonable limitations to its…

I think practically speaking such concerns are way overblown. There are tons of megacorps with lots of very ethically questionable practices (not just tech wrt privacy issues, think about money laundering banks, food and energy companies causing environmental damage). The majority of consumers don't seem overly concerned unless they are very directly victimised by said practices.

Its telling that a comoany can get away with it in another country but not the US. It means that you atleast have some legal recourse with a US company.

Re: Huawei replaces Android with HarmonyOS, which is also Android

#197

Post by swiley »

pjmlp wrote: post #183
swiley wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Congrats on reverting home computing back to the amiga days then. I have walked into target, bought androids, pulled them out of the box and connected them to the network over which they would immediately proceed to download gigabytes of malware from the play store.

That is not malware. > computer software that is designed to damage the way a computer works https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/malware As home computing being reverted back to the Amiga days, I really look forward to it. PC, macOS, iOS, Android are devices with a soul, where hardware and software is designed in alongside each other. Whereas GNU/Linux folks keep trying to put a PDP-11 sh into a mobil…

Meh, at this point I'll take a pdp-11 sh on my phone (I use ash actually.) At least it does what I tell it to do unlike most of Android.

Re: Huawei replaces Android with HarmonyOS, which is also Android

#198

Post by toephu2 »

swiley wrote: post #88
chronogram wrote: post #54

> Another major nit I have to pick with HarmonyOS is its lack of access and transparency. Just accessing the SDK and emulator required me to go through an insane process that involved uploading a photo of my US passport and credit card to Huawei’s servers so that I could be approved to access the SDK after a two-day waiting period. Most companies just have a download link. You don’t get to run the emulator locally on…

I tried doing iOS dev years ago. Apple had me fax them my driver's license. You can whine about the FSF all you want but I've never had to do that to use gcc.

This is just one anecdotal experience out of hundreds of thousands. Because of your one bad experience you just dismiss Apple? I can also provide 1 anecdotal piece of evidence: I've done iOS dev and published apps in the App Store. Never had to fax my drivers license to Apple.

Re: Huawei replaces Android with HarmonyOS, which is also Android

#199

Post by swiley »

pjmlp wrote: post #185
dTal wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What? Point me to a single piece of malware in any major distro's repositories; I'll wait.

Software most humans care to use on GNU/Linux isn't part of distro repositories. curl | sudo sh rulez!

Most of it really is.

When you need software that isn't well supported by your OS you're always going to have to apply some degree of care and research. Thinking that any degree of sandboxing or API re-arranging will ever make flinging binaries around safe is extremely naive and counter productive.

Re: Huawei replaces Android with HarmonyOS, which is also Android

#200

Post by swiley »

toephu2 wrote: post #198
swiley wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tried doing iOS dev years ago. Apple had me fax them my driver's license. You can whine about the FSF all you want but I've never had to do that to use gcc.

This is just one anecdotal experience out of hundreds of thousands. Because of your one bad experience you just dismiss Apple? I can also provide 1 anecdotal piece of evidence: I've done iOS dev and published apps in the App Store. Never had to fax my drivers license to Apple.

I'm not alone. Also requiring state-ID in order to share software should be disturbing enough to abandon platforms.
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