Huawei unveils laptop running self-developed HarmonyOS as Windows licence expire | Hacker News Reader

Huawei unveils laptop running self-developed HarmonyOS as Windows licence expire

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It just seems like common sense that if you impose sanctions, tariffs, embargoes, etc. at a wide enough scale to a determined enough "adversary", they will just become more resilient, self-sufficient, and antagonistic than they were if simply left alone.

I don't know the answers to the questions of international cooperation and economic imbalances, but I am pretty confident that this is not the way. I haven't seen sufficient evidence to the contrary.

All of that being said, it's great to see a new operating system that (if I understand correctly) isn't just derived from an existing one.

Good, that increases global compute diversity. It’s a win win. America benefits if MS has more competition.

Isn't this basically how we got Lua?

This is true but it's also true in this instance that the adversary was already antagonistic and was moving towards self-sufficiency at their own pace while using your technology to do so.

The reasoning behind cutting them off through the methods you listed is to force them to move to self-sufficiency on your terms without as much access to your technology.

I'm not sure what technology you have in mind here. Correct if this is wrong, but China has required for transfer of technology when some business wanted to produce on its territory and has produced basically everything we can think of under the sun.

As the famous roll pen examplify, China can definitely make high tech products and it's more a question if economical relevance whether they will intensify in that direction

https://theasymmetric.substack.com/p/china-ballpoint-pen-mac...

I find it interesting not only that HarmonyOS is using a microkernel but also that its userland application language is compiled TypeScript.

https://developer.huawei.com/consumer/en/doc/harmonyos-guide...

I'd certainly be interested in benchmarks of running TypeScript via ArkTS vs transpiled JS in in V8.

ArkTS compiles into Ark Bytecode, and there is JIT on the user's device. According to feedback from the developer community, ArkTS is slower than V8, but Huawei has incorporated a multi-threading model into it.

So it’s still full of Microsoft stack.

Typescript is open source. It is a benefit for Huawei to use a language that is deeply supported by Microsoft, so clients have an easier time transitioning between ecosystems.

Javascript devs really can't stop with being surprising.

So Windows is super slow, but no way this could be even slower? How can it be usable at all?

The thing I'd really like to see & try is DSoftBus. Theres a massive distributed computing toolkit built in to the OS, it does cross-device operations? That's supposedly integral to even regular apps? That's so neat.

Unfortunately the barrier to entry seems to be sending government identity to Huawei, and I'm not willing to do that to get access to their software development kits. There'a source available at least for the earlier OpenHarmony forks, but figuring out how to take all the pieces and weave together a working OS is probably quite complex & undocumented. Here's some kind of developer centric openEuler link, https://github.com/openeuler-mirror/dsoftbus_standard

There's been such a dearth of clear advancement for users in OSes, in IoT, in distributed computing. It looks like there's something super super cool here, but so far, that view has mostly been some 5 or 10 second clips amid product promos and demoes. .

Last time I checked it did use the Linux kernel alongside their own kernel. I might be wrong though, so take my statement with a grain of salt.

I feel great about a competing OS to further the imagination of developers and service providers to make their offerings more platform independent.

I feel great about a third platform pushing the UI space to something newer (like iOS created touch centric UI).

I feel great about a new approach to kernel science. (Like ChromeOS did).

But I am afraid of a bill-gates era move to crush competitors. (Let’s credit BG for making the innovation space un-innovative deeply linear and unifying!)

And I am afraid of the interfaces I have come to love be destroyed and brought to ruin by “copying” upcoming platforms (like in Windows 8/10/11).

And I am afraid that consumers and developers will be segmented and overwhelmed with new styles of doing things that they will give up entirely.

> consumers and developers will be segmented and overwhelmed

Plurality in the computer market is a good thing. You should be more scared of the monopoly of a company like MS over desktop OS for personal computers. That's what made it possible for the government to enact barriers against other countries, like they're doing with China.

Harmony OS is quite neat, a lot like Google's Fushia or Genode.

I hope US/Europe's OSs can learn something from it.

Eclipse Oniro is an interesting proposal to build on top of OpenHarmony. Kind of "Palm/HP webOS and Firefox OS were right conceptually, but too early", minus Linux kernel and middleware.

im still sad about firefox OS, it was such a cool concept

Just checked it out. The site looks cool but I doubt OpenHarmony or Oniro will go anywhere. I just have a sense that it only exists to lend credibility to HarmonyOS outside of Huawei/China. Reminds me of MeeGo.

Around 100 million using OpenHarmony already in China in the last nearly 5 years of its existence. It is already going everywhere. Watches, phones to computers as well outside Huawei HarmonyOS https://github.com/openharmony-research/

Any tips on creating a Huawei account in the US? I can decipher the captcha if I translate the browser-translated hints to Chinese-traditional, but SMS verification isn't working.

edit: not translating the page makes the captcha even easier, and I am an idiot.

I'm confused by the premise here, as repeated in the title and initial sentence:

Huawei Technologies on Thursday unveiled its first laptop that runs the company’s self-developed operating system, HarmonyOS, following the expiration of its Microsoft Windows license for personal computers (PCs) in March.

What kind of Windows license are we talking about here? I understood that Huawei is a hardware manufacturer. Any Windows license on a laptop they deliver would be an OEM license attached to the device, right? Are they saying that Huawei lost its contract to sell Windows OEM licenses with the devices it manufactures?

Is that a thing? Does Microsoft say to hardware makers that no, you cannot sell your hardware with Windows? What kind of dispute between Microsoft and Huawei leads to that outcome?

I think it's targeting the government/corporation world -> if your Windows licenses expire, you can switch to HarmonyOS.

You need a license from Microsoft to resell Windows licenses as an OEM.

US sanctions against Huawei mean that they can't sign a renewal.

Okay some further searching indicates the license that is expiring is Microsoft's export license to export Windows to Huawei. After the previous round of sanctions on Huawei, Microsoft had applied for and received a license to continue selling Windows copies to Huawei for it to resell. That is expiring, and is not expected to be renewed.

So its really an export license from the US government that is expiring.

They result in the same thing right? Huawei can't use windows after a certain time period.

Nightmare for US is PRC throwing 10000s developers and billions at creating domestic professional photo/video/3d/cad editting software integrated into PRC cloud and giving it away for cheap/free/piracy.

If we can extrapolate the PhotoSir/himirage[1] example to the whole slice of creative industry software, there's no such top-down plan currently. OTOH, CapCut is fairly popular, while not being overly serious kind of "professional", but a TikTok influencer kind.

[1] YeeHeart Inc sells the Windows and macOS builds, but Linux versions are only available on the Chinese version of their site. Kylin package can be installed on Wayland-enabled Ubuntu. The UI seems to be Chinese-only. On-topic: they have a HarmonyOS Next port as well.

No, I think top down plan still focuses on industrial software, i.e. Huawei working on semi software. I think ZWCAD (which has decent penetration in PRC architecture/mechanical) to catch up in BIM, 3D, complex workflows. Maybe that flows into 3d software, simulations in other domains (structural, civil), then game engine etc. But there's nothing for _serious) professional creative piplines like photoshop, illusrator, premiere, max, blender etc. Some movement on AI enhanced lightroom stuff or other AI generated workflows because that's field is new/level. But IMO there really should be more effort to chip away at professional tools, where I don't think anyone is even trying because still largely competing with free pirated adobe/autocad software.

ZWCAD doesn't really do BIM in China, although the ZWCAD software is integrated with Archline XP, which is BIM software.

A popular standalone BIM provider in China is KuSpace, which is made by Manycore Tech. Manycore KuSpace

Wondershare fotophire is often used in place of Adobe Photoshop in China. In fact, Wondershare has a whole suite of apps similar to Adobe in China. Wondershare Filmora is made deliberately simple, as a lot of video editors are new to the profession in China. I expect Filmora to become more and more advanced, like Adobe Premiere Pro as the video editing industry matures in China.

Then there is KANVID for vector graphics, similar to Illustrator to some extent.

I agree with you, there will be more effort to chip away at these professional tools over time as several sectors in these related industries mature in China.

Aside from HarmonyOS, this was the first time I've heard about WPS Office. It's amazing that it's been around for so long and apparently is so widely used, yet this is the first I'm learning about it.

From the HarmonyOS webpage:

>Make development enjoyable with distributed technologies

>Hardware synergy for resource sharing

>HarmonyOS treats different smart devices into a single super device, behind which all devices work collaboratively and share their resources to offer a seamless experience for users.

Does anyone know what this means, because it sounds amazing. Does the OS natively VPN all your devices and expose their storage/computes/etc in a Plan9-esque way?

Not sure about the technical details, but I think it's a bit like iOS -> everything must go through the internal shop.

Not very exciting IMO.

Well that's disappointing if true. I guess I shouldn't have any high hopes for the consumer OS space UI/UX-wise.

The Arcan project is working on this vision, and they have funding from NLNet ! Still seems early but its exciting to follow

> Does the OS natively VPN all your devices

Uhm, I don't think so. How did you came up with that impression?

It sounds more like IOT

The attention to detail, animations, visual effects in general, in HarmonyOS NEXT; could easily surpass (or at the very least, compete with) Apple's iOS and macOS.

It's pretty sad that they won't be launching globally, and since, these devices will not be available in my country (or in case they are, they'll be insanely expensive, at the point where they will not be worth it anymore).

Hopefully they can make it decent. Always looking for a good competitor.

For now sticking with MacOS

One of the clear benefits of US/China’s Trade War is that we are seeing competitors to monopolies on both sides as both countries fear decoupling has a decent probability of happening and they don’t want to be left short.

And who would trust Huawei over (insert any Linux distro devs/providers)?

Too bad they did not go with Linux, but like M/S and Apple I guess the want to "protect" their users.

But it does look interesting and they probably have a huge worldwide market that the US is now locking themselves out of.

You said correctly, the US is locking itself out of this market. Huawei would have no incentive to create a new OS if it wasn't for crazy laws shutting them off the market. Now, Chinese business that live in the Huawei ecosystem have a great incentive to at least give a try to this new OS.

i can still remember that the Linux community blocked Russians from maintaining the Linux kernel

i guess they were "protect"ing their users

Additionally, I have always been curious to know whether the U.S. export ban applies to Linux and any other open source projects

> Additionally, I have always been curious to know whether the U.S. export ban applies to Linux and any other open source projects

It does, the Linux kernel maintainers eventually said that's the reason for banning Russian maintainers.

> It does, the Linux kernel maintainers eventually said that's the reason for banning Russian maintainers.

As craftkiller interline in a sibling post (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43927430): would this not rather imply that you should ban US-American maintainers (at least on some subsystems)?

If Russian maintainers write some Linux kernel code, this will cause no problem for a US export ban. On the other hand, if US-American maintainer does, it might.

According to Linus, “the ‘various compliance requirements’ are not just a US thing”:

https://lore.kernel.org/all/CAHk-=whNGNVnYHHSXUAsWds_MoZ-iEg...

I do not know the details myself.

How does that even work? By definition the code is "exported" to every country since it is open source.

It could be argued that you could ban imports from russia by not allowing them to contribute code, but an export ban is basically impossible.

You can't control where the code goes but you can sanction organizations for working with sanctioned orgs/individuals.

Given that US big tech funds a lot of orgs they will always have a big stake. One could for example filibuster certain Chinese or Russian features/proposals etc for a long time. Or at the last minute vote to do a 180% on a design proposals so US Rival have to redo an implementation. Standard office politics shit.

It seems they were following the sanctions, plenty of Russians that are not Zed patriots that left Ruzzia and they can freely work.

The OpenBSD project at least believes that the US restrictions on the export of cryptography would have impacted them. Its why they banned US developers working on cryptography long ago.

> Of course, our project needs people to work on these systems. If any non-American cryptographer who meets the constraints listed earlier is interested in helping out with embedded cryptography in OpenBSD, please contact us.

https://www.openbsd.org/crypto.html

Well, coincidentally, I read this news a couple of days ago about some new laptop offering by Huawei running Linux

https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2025/05/huawei-matebook-x-pro-20...

Huawei always had good linux support on their Matebook series. Was pleasently surprised when i tried to run linux on the Matebook x Pro.

China blocked the US out of the software market on many fronts. Good for them, it helped them make software a part of their economy unlike the EU.

> Too bad they did not go with Linux

The initial smartphone version of HarmonyOS 2 from a few years ago was just an Android reskin,[1] despite claims to the contrary from Huwaei, and unlike HarmonyOS 1 for IoT devices. It remains to be seen if HarmonyOS for PC really is an independent OS, a fork or a reskin/distro of an existing OS.

1. https://www.techspot.com/news/88512-huawei-harmonyos-20-poor...

No version of HarmonyOS has ever been an Android reskin. HarmonyOS has always had an Android compatibility layer. HarmonyOS "NEXT" removes that compatibility layer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AI5MzXmJVYQ&pp=ygUWaGFybW9ue...

> Too bad they did not go with Linux,

TBH, Linux is nowadays too bloated to be taken as a reference. The BSDs look more promising as a starting point.

I think it is good that there is development that goes beyond tired Windows and Unix-like operating systems. We need more serious operating system architectures not less.

I hope it at least has accessibility features.

The amount of telemetry this probably phones back straight to the CCP will make TikTok look like it's run by the EFF.

What's of the shelf products are free of any spy these days though?

Is the point you're trying to make that we should care anymore?

Not at all. Just saying that for the average citizen, being spied by CCP or any other big economical player is more likely the default expectation they can have with off the shelf product. That it's CCP (also) spying them is not really the nub of the issue.

Is it ARM or x86 based?

I'm guessing it's x86.

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