Those devices never used to run Fuchsia, they ran the Chromecast linux distrib. When I left that team half the devices (the small ones) were being re-flashed with Fuchsia, but the big ones were still running Chromecast. The UI layer was the same (Flutter-based) on both and a consumer can't tell the difference. There were no feature advantages to the Fuchsia transition. (In fact the opposite since a bunch of stuff [e.g. accessibility features] had to be rewritten from scratch)
I'm sure some stuff has bitrotted, but last I looked Chromecast was still a thing, so the OS distrib is still there and shipping on devices. And it will still run on those devices in the field.
Not actually suggesting this as a course of action, but I think you're wrong that they have no alternative to keeping Fuchsia. It would actually be very easy to kill it. It was super late rolling out on the Home Hub, added nothing consumers didn't have already, and would not be noticed when it was gone.
Besides there was always a political turf war about those display devices in which certain product teams (with the ear of people higher up) really thought they should be running Android. Unfortunately Android was a pig and couldn't reasonably perform on the bargain-basement SoC that was used. If Fuchsia was gone, Android would take over.
Chromecast for TV now runs android, CastOS use cases are mostly moved to android or fuchsia now.
> There were no feature advantages to the Fuchsia transition
I agree, yet I'm glad they did this just for the interestingness of technology. (Theoretically, the Rust based OS may have better security/protection against memory/buffer issues, but thats surely overshadowed by the bug risk of a new OS)
> It would actually be very easy to kill it
My understanding from my time there is that CastOS isn't in a shipping-new-features state anymore.
> If Fuchsia was gone, Android would take over.
This is why the announced Pixel Tablet is also a hub device.
There are still a lot of midrange phones out there, and IOS has always felt smoother.
GP comment mentions that userspace apps on Fuschia are predominantly Flutter apps, which isn't only running Dart (in a VM), but also using Skia for 2D (and 3D?) graphics, and that isn't going to go faster than native. With Fuschia, I believe the primary objective has always been a secure kernel base to build the rest of the OS upon. That is pretty hard to do with Linux without performance costs or support from underlying architectures (ex: https://github.com/google/kernel-sanitizers).
The Android Runtime otoh has long moved to AOT for hot-paths (profile-guided optimization) and JIT for the cold ones.
The biggest difference is that while some Android devices might be a sluggish if too many applications are taking liberties with memory, on iOS they just die, specially on Objective-C code, where not everyone checks all pointer related code.
Surely someone "took responsibility" for that one
But if you mean UI of Android TV itself, then it seems to be a choice of a suitable SoC, or rather not picking an underpowered one. For example, Nvidia picked well for their Shield line.
They initially ran a version of the same "CastOS" (we didn't call it that then) the same as what ran on Chromecast sticks. But the landing screen on it is richer than what boots on a Chromecast, and it had an interactive gesture based touch screen. CastOS is just a Linux distrib with some boot and build stuff stolen from Android, but the user space for it is basically booting straight into a chromium based web shell.
Before it (the display assistant) launched, I wrote (and ported from ChromeOS) some of the gesture stuff on it. And some of the accessibility features (magnification).
The "Dragonglass" UI that ran on it was originally built as a HTML/TypeScript stack application. Later it was rewritten in Flutter/Dart, ran for a while like that on CastOS using a Wayland-based wedge layer; and now it runs on Fuchsia.
(I don't think any of this is particularly internal or secret anymore since it's old news and replaced, and most of it was visible from the public chromium repo. Also they can't fire me anymore because I quit ;-) )
Thanks for the behind the scenes.
> Maybe they realized that they can't afford to build a new full-feature operating system that they'll never use for anything more than a smart speaker, so they're cutting 16+% of the scope.
An OS that is able to run the Chrome Browser? [0] The code to make this function is already there and I think this effort is more than just for smart speakers or Nest devices.
[0] https://9to5google.com/2022/03/04/full-google-chrome-browser...
To Google Fuschia is about having a better (to them) alternative than Linux. GPL is a pain in the ass when working with hardware vendors and getting driver code produced. Fuschia is about having an alternative they control where the user will never get copyleft access to driver sources.
I hope they don't. There is no incentive to contribute to such a project where you have 0 influence - especially when it is steered directly by a potential competitor. From Fuschia's governance page:
> Google steers the direction of Fuchsia and makes platform decisions related to Fuchsia. While Googlers contribute substantially to Fuchsia’s code base, the Fuchsia project encourages contributions from anyone, not just from Googlers [1].
Why would any other tech company contribute to something like this?
[1] https://fuchsia.dev/fuchsia-src/contribute/governance/govern...
Also it appears to be in the weird niche between "big" OSes like Linux and "microncontroller/embedded OSes" like FreeRTOS or seL4, with outward-facing features begin "It's from google" and "it's new"
It’s a new OS without a lot of the baggage and legacy stuff of Linux/etc.
I agree the Google-influence makes it hard, but it could be a valuable target for other companies IOT work. They’d probably need to maintain a fork though.
But sure that too…
Given google's track record (cutting that RSS feed) wouldn't surprise me they would just cut the whole project. They main bread and butter is somewhere else. It is time to move away from this company product.
I agree though, maybe Google should drop the entire device’s organization. Or spin-off nest.
looks at the graveyard of past Google projects
Which isn't to say you don't have a point, but Google do have form in killing stuff just like that.
Yes, you can.
If small company can kill eye prosthetics project and leave people with implants without support, why does Google cannot kill thermostats project?
Google is known by killing projects which are still used by thousands, without any replacement.
(ETA: Not that that's a good thing, mind you. There's a placard a few blocks from my home about the birth of Truth in Advertising as a reminder it was a hard-fought thing, easily lost. Some would say it is lost in modern advertising.)
First of all, Fuchsia is SMALL. I mean it could easily be maintained and developed by 50 people. The kernel is tiny despite being of many modules and so is the application layer. I don't see any problems wit the 16% lay off.
Fuchsia is in production; in people's homes today. You can't kill the whole project without a plan for those devices. What if there is a bug in the kernel? Who's going to fix those devices, who's going to ensure a security update comes out?
> Why cut 16% of a thing?
Well, maybe you realize that 336 people is enough? Or you cut 16% of the scope. Or you want to kill the project over the next year, but you need people there to help kill it gracefully, without jeopardizing a bunch of in-prod devices.
> it's still a priority but then you just made execution wayyy slower. > you can't afford the cash
Fuchsia is in prod, but there is realistically not much google can do with it. Its in prod on a few devices, and based on leaks on HN/media, that may increase. But that doesn't mean its anywhere near a new alternative to linux/android. Maybe they realized that they can't afford to build a new full-feature operating system that they'll never use for anything more than a smart speaker, so they're cutting 16+% of the scope.
Rumors I've heard from contacts in google is that more layoffs are coming across the year. 16% could be the biggest chunk they can take out at once without jeopardizing too much "bus factor". Fuchsia may get cut another 16% in 6mo. If they're de-prioritizing all non-smart-speaker utility, then they may be able to cut 50% over the long run, without "graveyard"ing it.
Personally, I agree that it doesn't make sense to maintain a custom OS over a linux distro if it isn't going places. They used to want to grow in-house knowledge and research on operating systems, but I bet those days are over now. I hope more organizations started to invest in fuchsia before it dies inside google.