Just for shits and gigs, I've been reading about the origins of Huawei's proprietary mobile OS; #HarmonyOS;

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/02/harmonyos-hands-on-huaweis-android-killer-is-just-android

(1/?)

#HatTip to @billbennett for the Ars link, which I found here; /https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL2106/S00013/huaweis-i-dont-believe-its-not-android-harmonyos.htm.

FYI Bill I tried to find a copy of this article on your own site to link to, but although search seemed to find one;

https://billbennett.co.nz/huaweis-i-dont-believe-its-not-android-harmonyos/

...clicking it currently redirects here;

https://billbennett.co.nz/oppo-find-x8-pro/

A bug in #Ghost or a misconfiguration? (CC @johnonolan)?

Huawei’s HarmonyOS: “Fake it till you make it” meets OS development

No discernible difference between Huawei's "all-new" OS and Android.

Ars Technica

It seems like Huawei has followed Goggle's own playbook.

When Goggle bought #Android as a startup, the OS was entirely Free Code, some of it forked from existing projects (notably the Linux kernel). This chapter from a decade-old computer science book captures the flavour of the times;

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4302-6131-5_1

Published 7 years after Goggle had started pitching its Open Handset Alliance as a rebel alliance against grApple's iThings, with a similar vibe to grApple's 1984 anti-IBM ads.

(2/?)

History and Evolution of the Android OS

Android, Inc. started with a clear mission by its creators. According to Andy Rubin, one of Android’s founders, Android Inc. was to develop “smarter mobile devices that are more aware of its owner’s location and preferences.” Rubin further...

SpringerLink

This 2014 book, by Iggy Krajci and Darren Cummings, is worth quoting at length, especially for those too young to remember a time when we thought Goggle were valuable allies in the Free Code tech rebellion;

"With the introduction of Android, a single operating system removed the need for reimplementation of phone applications and middleware. The companies creating new devices could now focus much more intently on the hardware and underlying components."

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4302-6131-5_1

(3/?)

History and Evolution of the Android OS

Android, Inc. started with a clear mission by its creators. According to Andy Rubin, one of Android’s founders, Android Inc. was to develop “smarter mobile devices that are more aware of its owner’s location and preferences.” Rubin further...

SpringerLink

"But these companies weren’t the only ones who benefited from the launch of Android; software developers could now release applications to multiple devices with very few changes to the underlying code base. This allowed developers to spend more time working on the applications these phones were running and create the rich and impressive applications that we are all used to"

#IggyKrajci, #DarrenCummings, 2014

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4302-6131-5_1

The neutrality of Android was the selling point.

(4/?)

History and Evolution of the Android OS

Android, Inc. started with a clear mission by its creators. According to Andy Rubin, one of Android’s founders, Android Inc. was to develop “smarter mobile devices that are more aware of its owner’s location and preferences.” Rubin further...

SpringerLink

The promise of Android as a neutral common platform is a far cry from more recent events. Goggle has used its ownership of Android to exert greater and greater control over hardware vendors using it as the OS for their device;

https://www.channelfutures.com/connectivity/open-source-and-android-a-history-of-google-s-linux-based-mobile-os

More recently, over app developers too, "papers please, comrade" style;

https://keepandroidopen.org

(5/?)

Open Source and Android: A History of Google's Linux-Based Mobile OS

A brief history of Android, Google's Linux-based, open source mobile operating system for tablets and phones, now under attack by E.U. regulators.

Channel Futures

In 2026, it's painfully clear that developers make a deal with the devil when they make their app a business a wholly-owned subsidiary of Android (just as it's always been clear that's the case with iThings). To paraphase @pluralistic (paraphrasing Darth Vader), Goggle are changing that deal, and developers better pray they don't change it further;

https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/01/fulu/#i-am-altering-the-deal

(6/?)

#Android #enshittification

Pluralistic: Darth Android (01 Sep 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

Maybe this was Goggle's gameplan for Android and OHA all along. Or perhaps these changes to the Android deal are in retaliation against the negative attention their Android monopoly has received from anti-monopoly regulators. They may even be a reaction to growing regulatory sabre-rattling from politicians trying to extract votes from leaning into the techlash. It's hard to say.

Either way, the enshittification of mainline Android has entered a terminal phase.

(7/?)

Anyway, with all that background in mind, let's return to what I opened by saying about the HarmonyOS pivot; It seems like It seems like Huawei has followed Goggle's own playbook. Obviously the parallels are far from 1:1, but let me explain what I was getting at in the last few posts of this already overgrown thread.

(8/?)

Like Goggle, Huawei was able to bootstrap their mobile OS using someone else's working code. In Goggle's case they bought the company, but mainly to poach the dev team (a practice common enough to have its own neologism; an acqui-hire). They could have just forked Android in-house, as Huawai has done.

(9/?)

Goggle started with a fully Free Code OS, then started swapping out components for their own proprietary ones;

https://jacobin.com/2025/07/google-android-smartphones-open-source

Huawei has done the same with what's left of AOSP. See the Ars article in the OP, and this article from an India-based blog focused on Huawei;

https://www.huaweicentral.com/huawei-launched-harmonyos-next/

But this OS is for their devices. To Huawei's credit, they never pimped HarmonyOS as a vendor-neutral platform, got an industry locked in, then pulled the rug.

#Google #HarmonyOS

(10/?)

Google Keeps Making Smartphones Worse

Google’s Android, the world’s most widely used mobile operating system, started life as open-source software. In its quest for ever-greater profits, the tech giant has been gradually eroding Android’s open-source capacity over the last decade.

Along with the recent spate of nonfree Source Available licenses, Android is the archetypal example of how Open Source misses the point;

https://abhas.io/open-source-still-misses-the-point/

What matters is no such whether independent developers can inspect the code without permission, although that is important. What matters is our freedoms, as citizens in an increasingly digital-mediated world, and whether the tech we use respects them.

(11/?)

Why “Open Source” still misses the point!

Background

Not Someobody Else’s Problem - Mine.

Re-using Android OSP is a cheap way to bootstrap a digital product that needs an OS. Shipping an Android version of an app makes it easily available to a huge potential audience. Code under Source Available licenses can be useful for rapid prototyping, or hobby projects without the slightest whiff of commercial use.

This is fine if you don't mind building your castle in someone else's kingdom;

https://howtomarketagame.com/2021/11/01/dont-build-your-castle-in-other-peoples-kingdoms/

But not if you want to keep it yours in the long term.

(12/?)

Don’t build your castle in other people’s kingdoms – How To Market A Game

Obviously, licensing the use of HarmonyOS from Huawei is building a castle in someone else's kingdom too. But at least they don't try to pretend otherwise. They're just securing their supply of an input their business needs, not pretending to build a commons, then pulling a bait-and-switch when it suits their business strategy.

But we do need OS commons. We have GNU/Linux on the desktop, and although the Year of Linux on the Desktop always seems to be a year away, at least it's there.

(13/?)

There are plenty of ways we could go about building a mobile OS commons.

Most obviously AOSP could be forked, with distros like Replicant, /e/OS Lineageand Graphene rebasing on a community-driven variant of Android. With a de-Goggled stewardship organisation they all contribute dev resources and funds to as they can.

Also Mobile GNU is forging ahead. If you want to try it out, get hold of a PinePhone, Librem5, or an Android device that supports postmarketOS.

(14/?)

#mobileOS #MobileGNU

Sailfish OS is mostly Free Code, and after years of criticism for following the GritHub founder's Open Source Almost Everything playbook;

https://tom.preston-werner.com/2011/11/22/open-source-everything.html

... the Finnish company behind Sailfish, Jolla, are publishing Free Code for many currently nonfree modules;

https://forum.sailfishos.org/t/open-sourcing-proceeding/24689

Although whether that will results in a 100% libre Sailfish is anyone's guess.

(15/?)

Open Source (Almost) Everything

Another option is to fork Fuchsia, Goggle'sin-house Internet of Things OS, using its own Zircon kernel instead of Linux. As with Sailfish, it's hard to say without a lot more research how much work it would take to create a mobile-friendly variant of Fuchsia and Zircon that fully respects software freedom. Stripping out any element designed to privilege Goggle's business interests. But it's there as an option.

(16/?)

We didn't need to let grApple keep the touchscreen mobile space as their own private kingdom. Once Android was available, it didn't take long for iThings to become a minority of mobile devices.

We don't need to let grApple and Goggle rule the kingdom together either. Especially with anti-monopoly regulators breathing down their necks in both US and EU. We just need to decide, as a society, what mobile commons we're going to get behind, and all pull in the same direction. Let's do it!

(17/17)

@strypey my year of linux on the desktop (actually llaptop) was 2005. Never been back to Windows.

@rogerparkinson
> my year of linux on the desktop (actually llaptop) was 2005

I started my transition around this time. The emergence of Ubuntu and its derivatives was a game changer for many of us I suspect. Akin to the emergence of Mastodon on the OStatus fediverse.

> Never been back to Windows

Once you go hack, you never go back ; )