Huawei makes new OS, basically Android 10.

[TheReal1980]

 

Summary

So we were all waiting for Huawei's new os. It was supposed to be built from scratch to show the world that China does not need help from anyone.

Once again we were proven that they do and it was all a pack of lies.

It turns out their "new" os is basically Android 10.

 

Quotes

Quote

 To hear Huawei tell the story, HarmonyOS is an original in-house creation—a defiant act that will let the company break free of American software influence. Huawei's OS announcement in 2019 got big, splashy articles in the national media. CNN called HarmonyOS "a rival to Android," and Richard Yu, the CEO of Huawei’s consumer business group, told the outlet that HarmonyOS "is completely different from Android and iOS." Huawei President of Consumer Software Wang Chenglu repeated these claims just last month, saying (through translation), "HarmonyOS is not a copy of Android, nor is it a copy of iOS."

Quote

After getting access to HarmonyOS through a grossly invasive sign-up process, firing up the SDK and emulator, and poring over the developer documents, I can't come to any other conclusion: HarmonyOS is essentially an Android fork. The way that Huawei describes the OS to the press and in developer documents doesn't seem to have much to do with what the company is actually shipping. The developer documents appear almost purposefully written to confuse the reader; any bit of actual shipping code to which you hold up a magnifying glass looks like Android with no major changes.

 

My thoughts

Just the history of Huawei makes you wonder if they can invent anything at all.

 

Sources

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/02/harmonyos-hands-on-huaweis-android-killer-is-just-android/

 

https://www.androidauthority.com/harmony-os-ars-technica-1197580/

[WereCatf]

5 minutes ago, TheReal1980 said:

China makes new OS

Huawei != China.

[D13H4RD]

You mean Huawei made a fork of Android whilst calling it their own.

[SupaKomputa]

8 minutes ago, TheReal1980 said:

Copy an entire operating system and claim they made it, with a strait face, is very much how China does it's business.

Well Android is some sort of Linux fork. I think it's perfecly fine in the open source community.

The challenge is how will you differentiate from the source later in time.

OSX is a fork of unix which later on became an independent OS completely different from any other unix based os.

If this is their first step, why not?

[Bombastinator]

14 minutes ago, WereCatf said:

Huawei != China.

Much as Midas auto parts is not America. 

[Jurrunio]

Their definition of "making something" (more like creating something) means they successfully registered something to their local copyright institute. Standard for that is so low that even obvious clones of cars, shoes, bags etc manage to reach. So, don't be confused by their use of words.

[Bombastinator]

2 minutes ago, SupaKomputa said:

Well Android is some sort of Linux fork. I think it's perfecly fine in the open source community.

The challenge is how will you differentiate from the source later in time.

OSX is a fork of unix which later on became an independent OS completely different from any other unix based os.

If this is their first step, why not?

People have done android OSes with the Google data mining removed. Several in fact. It’s a bit like edge really which is as I understand it more or less chrome with the Google data mining removed.

[Mling]

34 minutes ago, WereCatf said:

Huawei != China.

it actually kind of is. All companies out of china come under control of the party when they get big enough. Jack Ma did not kill himself.

[SupaKomputa]

27 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

People have done android OSes with the Google data mining removed. Several in fact. It’s a bit like edge really which is as I understand it more or less chrome with the Google data mining removed.

Exactly, even MS done it, and called it their own, no one make a fuss.

[Middcore]

[Favna]

Another reputable source to list, XDA did their own investigation: https://www.xda-developers.com/harmony-os-2-0-initial-version-based-on-android/

 

That said, honestly I'm not surprised at all. I was skeptical from the moment that they announced it and this just proved me right. You don't make a mobile operating system from the ground up proverbially overnight. There's sooo much that goes into it (most never being visible to the end-user).

[RejZoR]

2 hours ago, D13H4RD said:

You mean Huawei made a fork of Android whilst calling it their own.

Well, so did Google fork the WebKit and called it Blink and now everyone is raving how it's their very own creation. Sure they crammed bunch of their own stuff but in an essence it's still just WebKit.

[Master Disaster]

4 hours ago, SupaKomputa said:

Well Android is some sort of Linux fork. I think it's perfecly fine in the open source community.

The challenge is how will you differentiate from the source later in time.

OSX is a fork of unix which later on became an independent OS completely different from any other unix based os.

If this is their first step, why not?

Its really not. All the open source license agreement's I'm aware are pretty clear about the fact that, if you use something as a base for something else then you are legally obligated to credit the thing you used at minimum, GPL stipulates that you must include the license of the source with your fork.

 

That said, this is China and its famously difficult for westerners to even get a copyright case to court in China let alone come out as the winner.

 

Why does everyone keep parroting this incorrect "fact" about OS X being a fork of Unix? Some parts of Apples Darwin kernel were taken from BSD, other were taken from Mach (both of which have a base in Unix) and actually a lot of it is written by Apple however macOS X is an almost direct port/fork of nextSTEP, even to this very day macOS retains some UI elements from nextSTEP.

 

TL:DR, the Darwin kernel has some basis in Unix but macOS isn't a kernel, its an operating system.

[Tristerin]

You should create titles for LTT, I clicked this topic, and did not see what I thought I should see based on Subject Header

[Soppro]

I mean, there was no way Huawei was ever going to succeed in building their own entirely new OS. Unless it did something massively better than the incumbent mobile operating systems, it would never penetrate the Western world.

4 hours ago, RejZoR said:

Well, so did Google fork the WebKit and called it Blink and now everyone is raving how it's their very own creation. Sure they crammed bunch of their own stuff but in an essence it's still just WebKit.

Well I'm sure if you pressed Google, they would admit it was a fork of WebKit. Huawei here is straight up quoted as saying "it's not a copy of Android"

[StDragon]

I'm surprised they weren't able to fork Red Star OS.

[Bombastinator]

2 hours ago, huilun02 said:

Ftfy

This might wind up being a double post.  I replied earlier but I’m not seeing it.  I think it becomes a case of the most one can hope for is less dirty.  Microsoft doesn’t do actual zero data mining.  They do seem to do orders of magnitude less though.  Your point is taken  though.  Not zero is not zero.  “”Drastically reduced” might be most accurate.

[RejZoR]

I mean, why would you invent a new square wheel and kill all compatibility? This being Android based which is open source anyway, developers don't have to rewrite entire apps. They just made entire 3rd party API from scratch most likely for it not to depend on Google's crap like all other phones do.

[Fasterthannothing]

9 hours ago, WereCatf said:

Huawei != China.

That's just ignorance of how businesses function in China. Most people don't even know but members of the ccp are on the board of basically every single business in China because they require it. I know this for a fact.

[wamred]

9 hours ago, TheReal1980 said:

 

Summary

So we were all waiting for Huawei's new os. It was supposed to be built from scratch to show the world that China does not need help from anyone.

Once again we were proven that they do and it was all a pack of lies.

It turns out their "new" os is basically Android 10.

 

Quotes

 

My thoughts

Just like I thought. China may be the place where most things are made but things like this just points out how far they are from the rest of the world.

Copy an entire operating system and claim they made it, with a strait face, is very much how China does it's business.

Just the history of Huawei makes you wonder if they can invent anything at all.

 

Sources

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/02/harmonyos-hands-on-huaweis-android-killer-is-just-android/

 

https://www.androidauthority.com/harmony-os-ars-technica-1197580/

Wow, I was actually excited about seeing what they could do 

[WereCatf]

30 minutes ago, Shorty88jr said:

I know this for a fact.

And I have this bridge to sell you.

[Master Disaster]

37 minutes ago, Shorty88jr said:

That's just ignorance of how businesses function in China. Most people don't even know but members of the ccp are on the board of basically every single business in China because they require it. I know this for a fact.

Until to provide a single shred of evidence to back this claim up its nothing but unsubstantiated speculation.

 

You should probably go read about State Owned Enterprises and how not all businesses in China are SOE.

 

Edit - After looking into it Huawei is an interesting case. While Huawei are not an SOE their parent company is and since Huawei have never floated shares on the public markets its thought that they do indeed receive some Chinese state funding though this has never been confirmed to be true.

[wanderingfool2]

10 hours ago, TheReal1980 said:

Just like I thought. China may be the place where most things are made but things like this just points out how far they are from the rest of the world.

Copy an entire operating system and claim they made it, with a strait face, is very much how China does it's business.

Just the history of Huawei makes you wonder if they can invent anything at all.

...or you know, they could be doing this because the US decided to block Google products from being sold to Huawei.  The result of this is straight up consequence of the US government imposing trade restrictions.  There is simply not much to criticize in my opinion.

 

9 hours ago, Mling said:

it actually kind of is. All companies out of china come under control of the party when they get big enough. Jack Ma did not kill himself.

Look, I do get that the Chinese government does have their hands in the companies, but it's also like saying Google = US.  If you want evidence, look at the mass surveillance that occurred (PRISM), or the fact that Android wasn't allowed to be provided to Huawei.  Not trying to make this political or anything, just pointing out that Huawei does not equal China and it's unfair to criticize a Chinese company for copying an OS when in fact they are effectively doing so to circumvent an export ban.  (You simply don't make an OS overnight, or even in a few years time)

[whm1974]

1 hour ago, wanderingfool2 said:

  (You simply don't make an OS overnight, or even in a few years time)

Well you could, but it will be really simple. Like the first CP/M for example.

[Fasterthannothing]

On 2/4/2021 at 11:39 AM, WereCatf said:

And I have this bridge to sell you.

 

On 2/4/2021 at 11:44 AM, Master Disaster said:

Until to provide a single shred of evidence to back this claim up its nothing but unsubstantiated speculation.

 

You should probably go read about State Owned Enterprises and how not all businesses in China are SOE.

 

Edit - After looking into it Huawei is an interesting case. While Huawei are not an SOE their parent company is and since Huawei have never floated shares on the public markets its thought that they do indeed receive some Chinese state funding though this has never been confirmed to be true.

This is pretty well known just Google it.

 

"The law to create party cells in the private sector was enacted in the year 2000 and by 2016 party cells had been established in 68 percent of China's non-government enterprises. Even foreign companies could not escape the Chinese government. Seventy percent of foreign companies in China had formed the Communist Party Cell by 2016."

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.dnaindia.com/business/report-xi-jinping-wants-more-control-over-private-companies-in-china-by-increasing-the-impact-of-ccp-2843475/amp