> Some people have imagined that Fuchsia's destiny is to replace Android, and some of them believe that's because Android is tainted by Java and Google will want to sidestep.
Whether or not Fuchsia can or might run Java or Kotlin apps, as you talk about, is not what this scenario is about. The apocalyptic scenario some believed about Fuchsia was that it existed as an OS that didn't need Java. If it can host & run Java or Kotlin apps? That might have had to go, that might have had to be cut. But Fuchsia could have survived.
Fuchsia is independent of Java and Kotlin. To run a Zircon kernel, to run a Fuchsia OS required no Java technologies. One maybe could/can use Java to write apps (having trouble stablishing this premise), but Java is not a dependency for this OS. With Fuchsia, Google could have given up Java, if they had to. What you @CameronNemo are talking about- the ability to use Java and Kotlin to write Fuchia apps, if true[1], is something that could have been sacrificed without affecting the rest of Fuchsia. I'd also point out that Fuchsia does not advertise Java or Kotlin support[2], regardless of whatever you may have heard, but it was at least once rumored of, so I can sympathize.
This is 99.9998% a conspiracy theory & in my estimation you'd have to be daft to think Fuchsia was only an escape hatch (there's a ton of great technical work breaking from Linux & more in it), but the "Fuchsia is only to escape Java if we have to" scenario sketched was at least technically plausible & sound, checked out. It has no Java dependencies.
[1] https://9to5google.com/2018/11/09/fuchsia-friday-java-borrow...