Google has been working on Fuchsia for a few years now, rather quietly. Though it did garner a lot of attention a few years ago, and has been very quiet in the past year or so. That changes today though, as Fuchsia is now open to the public, as Google wants your help with its latest open source operating system.
The entire time that Google has been developing Fuchsia, it has been open source. Meaning that anyone could take a look at the code and build it on some device. But today, Google has announced that it is looking for people outside of Google to contribute to the project.
While Google is asking for help in developing Fuchsia, it does also stress that “Fuchsia is not ready for general product development or as a development target.” In layman’s terms, don’t expect to see it on a phone, tablet or any other hardware anytime soon. It is still very early in its development.
Fuchsia is not meant to replace Android, contrary to what many believe
Many believe that Google wants to replace Android (and possibly Chrome OS) with Fuchsia. But that’s not necessarily true. While it could become its successor at some point, right now it’s just about experimentation.
It’s not going to be a one-for-one replacement, and will likely be around with Android and Chrome OS. But we have seen Fuchsia running on some unannounced Made By Google devices already.
Gogle’s Hiroshi Lockheimer has said that Fuchsia may be optimized for “certain other form factors” beyond phones and laptops. Lockheimer also stated last year, that “we’re looking at what a new take on an operating system could be like. Fuchsia is about just pushing the state of the art in terms of operating systems.” Lockheimer says that it won’t replace Android or Chrome OS. But of course, he has to say that. If Lockheimer came out and said it would replace either OS, then its partners would stop developing for Android and/or Chrome OS.