Huawei’s HarmonyOS is now open source | Hacker News Reader

Huawei’s HarmonyOS is now open source

openharmony.gitee.com

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Interesting, this is my first time seeing "Gitee". It appears to be a Chinese clone of Github?

Looking at a random project, the interface pretty much a direct clone: https://gitee.com/YanceSpring/F-IM

Or clone of gitea

The repo-level comments section is an interesting touch.

Some source said the Gitee was based on GitLab, I can't confirm because I'm not yet an user.

Guess what, I just registered a test account, and poked a little bit for fun (Somebody already took the username I wanted so I'm not in the mood to actually use their service). I found that at least their URL routing system is not well-thought.

See, they have a "Self Services" system under the HTTP path "/self_services", and the path to an user profile is formatted like "/username", the path to a repository is formatted like "/username/repositoryname".

So... (I think you've already guessed it)

- This is the URL to their Self Service: https://gitee.com/self_services

- Then, I registered a user named "self_services" (successfully, surprise!), and created a repository: https://gitee.com/self_services/test-repo. Yeah, that just happened.

I guess they are using a big global Routing Table instead of a staged one. Hope can get it they fixed, because it could be a hole in their security.

more like a gitlab clone than github clone.

I tried looking at commit history for few repos and was prompted login to view them. Not sure what logic in deciding you had to login to view commit history. Especially when you can clone the repo to local and view it there.

Growth hacking, if you can consider that logic.

its a rather expensive operation, so restricting for anonymous users is a sensible trade off.

China and GitHub have a kind of history.

GitHub has been blocked multiple times by CCP for repos related to Tibet, Taiwan and Hong Kong. And there have been a few large-scale ddos attacks very openly coordinated from China.

So I guess it was just a matter of time before this would happen. I assume they will block GitHub permanently now.

I assume they couldn't use github because of the US sanctions? I also wonder how much open sourcing will help turn this OS into the Android killer that some had hyped and hoped it to be?

Maybe not an Android killer, but something to help Android improve in the long run?

I'm getting tired of Google making all decisions. With each release they are adding more useless functions that by some odd chance helps them access more of my data.

New function in Android 13: UnmuggDroid: by always having the mic on, Google can detect when you are being mugged and contact the authorities. We have also removed the possibility of turning off the GPS, to provide everyone a better user experience.

This is parody, tho I had to double check.

Yeah they would have named it something innocuous like AlwaysSafe.

Dude, are you in marketing? You should be.

----

New functions in Android 13:

AlwaysSafe: by always having the mic on, Google can detect when you are being mugged and contact the authorities.

CleaySky: GPS is now always active to provide a better user experience. Family accounts also share their location with each other in real-time!

FastBrowse: we use Google servers to compress all your browsing traffic (this includes 3rd party browsers) to minimize data usage and reduce latencies.

BigMac: All devices will now use randomized MAC addresses for wifi and Bluetooth to improve privacy. (For the technical reasons this function will only work if you are a Nest costumer or have a Google Home device).

----

(This is a joke people. Although, Google being Google, I can picture this happening)

Right: It's impossible to imagine Huawei being allowed to open-source anything.

Couldn't find any references, Can you please provide sources?

Are you sure they don't have the mic on constantly already? I swear, the number of times the ads that were shown to me were absolutely spot on, even though I've not done any searchs online to indicate those were the things I wanted. The only explanation I have is my Android phone overhearing some of my conversations. Or am I being super paranoid?

You are being paranoid ;)

There have been apps actually doing this on both Android and iOS (e.g. the Spanish football app).

But everyone have been quick to plug this hole. Android now warns you if this happens, and Google has thrown out apps that did this (unfortunately mostly legitimate recording apps).

You are free to test this yourself: talk a whole week about your new dog and how you are desperate to find good dog food and see what happens.

(Mentioning dog food since this is how one YouTuber tested this with Cortana on PC)

Thinking about it, my need to constantly remind my Android phone to f Google (I actually don't hate Google, I do it just in case they are overhearing me...) is already a sign that I am being paranoid.

Just an anecdote, and probably more on topic: Some western reporter changed her WeChat (Chinese chat app & more) password to fkCCP. 10 minutes later her account was deleted.

I'd guess at least 50% of the female population under 30 of where I live would welcome such a feature. Especially during darkness they are always talking on the phone, or simulating to be in a talk with someone.

Which is obvious when you see them long before they see you, and when they do, begin to bubble stuff.

Gitee is in China what Github/Gitlab is in the rest of the world. I wouldn't have expected a Chinese company to publish their sources anywhere else, really.

Why take the risk, given US bullying trade policies even trying to take down Huawei suppliers.

Yep, The largest threat to the international FOSS collaboration is the US bullying other countries.

Because of threat of US sanctions Harmony OS is very attractive to phone companies in China. Open source helps but it is still dependent on a services component (corresponding to Google Mobile Services - a server component for messaging, map, app store, app validation etc.).

Github is often inaccessible in some countries. From memory I recall Iran, Russia, China and Turkey (US sanctions, hosting political stuff or bomb manuals). Less mainstream sites are bit more reliable.

English documentation is here: https://gitee.com/openharmony/docs/tree/master/docs-en

Why is the description written like it's authored by a marketing team for executives to read, neither of which would understand what's being described?

For context:

https://linuxreviews.org/Huawei_Announces_OpenHarmony_Projec...

GPL V2 (Linux) + Apache + FreeBSD code in a single project?? How does it work?

The same way it does on Android.

That is not much unlike Android the c standard library there is forked from FreeBSD

Why not? Even Linux itself has MIT/BSD2-3/GPL/LGPL

https://github.com/torvalds/linux/search?o=asc&q=SPDX-LICENS...

Those are the preferred licenses for Linux:

https://github.com/torvalds/linux/tree/6f0d349d922ba44e4348a...

GPLv2 and Apache v2 are not compatible due to the patent grants, so I think the Apache v2 licensed code ought to be covered by another license or else it would be a breach of copyright. In general if you mix up BSD licensed software with GPL code, the combined program is considered a derivative and it's distributed under the GPL itself. The original BSD-licensed files are still under the BSD, but anything that directly refers to GPL code (i.e., glue code, anything that #include s a GPL header) is under GPL too.

Can this be deployed on an existing Huawei phone (say a P40)?

No mobile beta comes out at the end of this year, and for other more personal computing devices at the end of next year. At least that is my assumption when they mentioned devices with more then 4gb of ram.

Ok. Thanks I see that now. This an OS for embedded devices.

The English introduction mentions the "Hi3516" development board:

https://gitee.com/openharmony/docs/blob/master/docs-en/quick...

Which looks like an Raspberry PI type device.

I’m no googler, I trust Huawei more than google

Then open your eyes, Huawei isn't any better than Google in both term of privacy and security.

Previously on GitHub here https://github.com/Awesome-HarmonyOS/HarmonyOS

Now probably means on their own gitee platform, so they don't have to speak english all the time.

"Awesome-HarmonyOS" is something like a fansite, nothing official. Gitee also isn't their "own" platform. Some of Huawei's projects have their code hosted by Huawei themselves (e.g. https://code.opensource.huaweicloud.com/HarmonyOS/OpenArkCom... ) but that platform is just horrible (especially on mobile), so it's probably a good thing they switched to Gitee instead.

there are few alternative OSs already, they could have just promoted one of them, like https://lineageos.org

nevertheless, the more competition to google the better.

Lineage is just forked Android with lot of UI tweaks, similar to what Huawei also did with EMUI. Sailfish would have been a better example.

I had a VERY quick glance at it and there doesn't seem to be any USB support, is that also because of US sanctions or did I miss it ?

Did you mean "Huawei's rebranded (insert some long existing OS name here) is now open source"?

I will not use a copycat service of github which is under control of the CCP.

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