Article 5BD55 Google’s Fuchsia operating systems steps into the spotlight, transitions to a proper open source project

Google’s Fuchsia operating systems steps into the spotlight, transitions to a proper open source project

by
Thom Holwerda
from OSnews on (#5BD55)

Google has finally - finally - truly and honestly confirmed Fuchsia is a thing.

Fuchsia is a long-term project to create a general-purpose, open source operating system, and today we are expanding Fuchsia's open source model to welcome contributions from the public.

[...]

Starting today, we are expanding Fuchsia's open source model to make it easier for the public to engage with the project. We have created new public mailing lists for project discussions, added a governance model to clarify how strategic decisions are made, and opened up the issue tracker for public contributors to see what's being worked on. As an open source effort, we welcome high-quality, well-tested contributions from all. There is now a process to become a member to submit patches, or a committer with full write access.

In addition, we are also publishing a technical roadmap for Fuchsia to provide better insights for project direction and priorities. Some of the highlights of the roadmap are working on a driver framework for updating the kernel independently of the drivers, improving file systems for performance, and expanding the input pipeline for accessibility.

It has been a very, very long time since any of the major technology companies built a new operating system from the ground up. Windows 10 is Windows NT, a project started in 1989 and first released as Windows NT 3.1 in 1993. The Linux kernel was first released in 1991. macOS grew out of NeXTSTEP, development of which started in 1985, seeing its first release in 1989. These operating systems are old.

Fuchsia is truly new, and developed by one of the biggest companies in the world, and while Google has a spotty track record when it comes to corporate attention span, I doubt they'd roll out the red carpet like this after four years of sort-of-but-not-really open development if they intend to kill the entire thing two years from now. And even if they do - the code's out there anyway.

There's a guide on how to build Fuchsia and set up an emulator (for Linux and macOS), so you can start poking around today.

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