OS development getting more popular again?

Posted Jun 21, 2025 15:09 UTC (Sat) by krakensden (subscriber, #72039)
In reply to: OS development getting more popular again? by georgyo
Parent article: Asterinas: a new Linux-compatible kernel project

Linux Foundation is a US entity, and they closed the kernel off from Russian contributions.

OS development getting more popular again?

Posted Jun 21, 2025 15:46 UTC (Sat) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link]

> Linux Foundation is a US entity, and they closed the kernel off from Russian contributions.

No, the LF closed off the "Linux" they maintain (at kernel.org) from contributions from folks employed by sanctioned Russian organizations.

Nothing prevents those organizations from maintaining their own fork. Or collaborating with the numerous long-lived forks maintained outside US jurisdiction.

OS development getting more popular again?

Posted Jun 22, 2025 15:58 UTC (Sun) by ceplm (subscriber, #41334) [Link] (7 responses)

1. @pizza is right, they didn’t close access to all Russian contributors, just to those working for the companies on the sanctioned list.

2. What’s much more important, it has absolutely no repercussions for using and developing Linux in Russia. Whatever I think about Russia and their current insane crimes in Ukraine, it didn’t make a zilch change for efforts like Astra Linux. They didn’t flop just because two Russian programmers were banned from contributing to the kernel.org kernel.

OS development getting more popular again?

Posted Jun 23, 2025 12:50 UTC (Mon) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link] (6 responses)

Whether rightly or wrongly, whether you or I would or would not come to the same conclusion, the conclusion that has been drawn in China (in the context of other punitive sanctions the US has enacted, as part of an economic trade war to try stymy Chinese technological development) is that China must - as a strategic concern - become fully self-sufficient technology wise, and draw down dependence on technologies where access (in whatever way) can be restricted or made difficult by powers like the USA. *Security concerns* are also a factor in this.

The consequence of this is that at least one major Chinese phone company has spent a number of years developing a new phone OS. From the kernel through to the user-space. And that software stack is already shipping in beta form for phones, and will be a full commercial release soon. And the default software on their phones at some point not far off.

Other Chinese companies will go the same way. Yes there is still plenty of general Free Software in there, but they're rewriting the bits they find strategically important to rewrite (kernel, the main UI and its libraries).

I'm not writing anything political in this, just stating facts - things that have happened. Pointing out a direction of travel with regards to software technology in a major economy, which happens to be largely due to foreign policy of another major power. Draw your own conclusions.

OS development getting more popular again?

Posted Jun 24, 2025 14:59 UTC (Tue) by rjones (subscriber, #159862) [Link] (5 responses)

Authoritative regimes always seem to try to drift into autarky and used a variety of excuses for it. It a dumb move and only results in a lot of waste and loss of competitiveness.

The real motive probably has less to do with a fear of the USA Federal government being idiots and much more to do with consolidating controls over the lives of Chinese citizens. Phones running government controlled applications are increasingly a requirement for any sort of physical movement and economic interactions in China. Totalizing control of the phone platforms themselves is just the next logical step.

OS development getting more popular again?

Posted Jun 24, 2025 15:02 UTC (Tue) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link] (3 responses)

In China, the state has you under constant surveillance. In the West, corporations have you under constant surveillance.

Neither the CCP nor our corporate overlords are answerable to citizens.

OS development getting more popular again?

Posted Jun 24, 2025 15:05 UTC (Tue) by daroc (editor, #160859) [Link]

This thread strikes me as having wandered fully off-topic. Let's leave it here, please.

OS development getting more popular again?

Posted Jun 24, 2025 15:18 UTC (Tue) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link] (1 responses)

I believe the US constitution guarantees the right to seek happiness.

Who is happier - your average Chinese, or your average American? (I'll throw in your average European, too.)

Last I knew, the average American was well below the average European (although the gap is narrowing, the Americans are dragging us down). I don't know about the Chinese, but I doubt they're in third place ...

Cheers,
Wol

OS development getting more popular again?

Posted Jul 3, 2025 2:08 UTC (Thu) by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389) [Link]

> I believe the US constitution guarantees the right to seek happiness.

You're thinking of the Declaration of Independence. The closest the Constitution gets are the amendments that state that government cannot deprive a person of life, liberty, or property (5th and 14th).

OS development getting more popular again?

Posted Jun 24, 2025 17:02 UTC (Tue) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link]

Without entering into non-technical discussion, and sticking to factual matters, just on this point:

> Phones running government controlled applications are increasingly a requirement for any sort of physical movement and economic interactions in China

This is possibly as true in the West as in China. Indeed, in China I can run Alipay and WeChat on my rooted, deGoogled, LineageOS phone (so they can be run completely sandboxed) and pay for stuff no problem. Whereas, in the West generally banking and other FinTech/EMI apps simply do not work on rooted phones. I have to keep a 2nd phone with the blessed manufacturer firmware, if I want to use financial apps. In China my exposure is just those 2 apps - I lack control over them, but I have control over the OS (in principle); whereas in the west my exposure additionally is to 1 or more entities who make the OS firmware.

Further, in the West those bank and Fintech apps, and the OS vendor obviously all co-operate with *numerous* states, both for judicially approved requests and sometimes for extra-judicial requests. For some apps (not banking per se, but other BigTech apps say) at least 1 of those jurisdictions that data or meta-data is shared with has an extremely poor human rights record (down to having international rulings of severe human rights abuses against them, at the ICJ).

You may have different views on which regimes are "good" and "bad" than I do, or what another person in another situation has - and that discussion is off-topic for LWN ;) - however, from a purely technical POV, when it comes to control over the software I can use in my phone (and control over the software I do not trust, i.e. sandboxing tech) to date I feel I have *more* control in China than in the West from a tech perspective.

(Disclaimer: I have only been a tourist to China).