Google's Fuchsia documentation was hidden in plain sight

Chris Merriman
@ChrisTheDJ
12 April 2018

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GOOGLE HAS PUBLISHED some documentation that sheds a bit more light on its new under-construction operating system, 'Fuchsia'.

Although the documents aren't actually new-new, they were hidden in the Github repository and not actually labelled (the file name was book.md), so they're effectively new to the rest of us.

It's worth remembering that at the moment, Fuchsia is a bit of an open secret. Google hasn't officially announced it, but with Google I/O next month already looking to be an absolute blinder for announcements, it could be that turning some anonymous documentation into something called "the book" is a hint that it is ready to come clean.

Whether or not the capability-based (and therefore, hopefully, very secure) operating system really is an eventual replacement for Android, or something completely different is still up for debate, but here's what we know, so far.

Firstly, we know it's modular. This should make it a heck of a lot easier for Internet of Things devices to slipstream and fit into tiny footprints.

There's an entire section labelled "Fuchsia is not Linux" so that point is suitably labelled. Because it isn't and we knew that.

It is based on a Zircon micro-kernel, and although it currently only runs on a few devices such as the Pixelbook, it will eventually be able to run on literally anything (yes, even the venerable HTC HD2 we expect).

All of which is just confirmation of stuff that has been gleaned by devs who have been poking around in the source code, in as much as Google's silence on the matter can be classed as confirmation.

The document is live, which is a good thing because although we've got a bit of info from this, there's still a lot we just don't know, so the message, for now, is to keep updating Fuchsia and you'll keep getting updated versions of this information (such as it is). µ