One of the primary goals is to have a non-copyleft license so they can do more proprietary aspects without being forced to give back to the OS and community that made their company.

It is their right, but I share your sentiment.

Google has a reputation of extinguishing its own projects. So who knows how long their fascination w/ Fuchsia will last.

Allure of flushing down the toilet GPL software from their stack is just too high for them, to just walk away from it.

At least it wouldn't hurt to always have some flowers around for the next Google project entering the Google Graveyard ;-) (I don't expect that Fuchsia would end there any time soon.)

I thought Fuschia wasn't Linux

In theory if Fuschia fulfills it's purpose, google could have Android sit on top of Fuschia as opposed to a Linux Kernel.

This would give them far more control over the direction of the OS, far more control over millions of users, and allow far less tinkering by android users.

While Android users still tinker within their steadily shrinking degrees of freedom, their desire for software freedom has an escape route within the Android world. But what if Google succeeds in using Fuschia to lock down the consumer mobile ecosystem ? With nowhere left to go, won't users focus on some new space entirely outside of Google's reach instead of just fleeing Google around Android ?

It's not, but it can run Linux binaries.

https://www.osnews.com/story/133013/fuchsia-gets-support-for...

My shot in the dark: try to keep up with Apple. They are never going to get Apple-levels of performance per watt from their current hardware and software choices.

I think it's more about moving on from Android.

There's no "extend" here. It's just "replace".