I've recently watched a talk by Jonathan Corbet on Linux Kernel Report [0]. At one point he asked the audience "Who's running Linux on their phone?". Lots of people raised their hand. He then said "Well, are you? Because a lot of companies have as much as 2+ millions of lines of custom kernel code on their devices. Huawei in particular has 2.7+ millions. If the kernel currently is at about 24 million lines of code, and you only need a small subset of that for a phone, then what you end up with is something different than Linux." It happens at approximately 30:40 in the video. I have a suspicion that HarmonyOS is just what they have now plus another 200k+ lines of code or so to change the look.
I've worked closely with Huawei on a number of projects and they really work their employees to the bone, with terrible code, non-existent procedures, and a stressfull existence for everyone involved as a result.
I have a suspicion that HarmonyOS is just what they have now plus another 200k+ lines of code or so to change the look.
It's microkernel based, so it's not just a look change.
Huawei must obey all orders of their government.
Google must obey only legal orders. Legality can be challenged in the courts.
It's also highly questionable whether the legality of many US equivalents can reasonably be legally challenged. Most of the cases brought against PRISM have been dismissed (and none have been successful). If PRISM is not in fact unconstitutional, then any distinction drawn betweeen the situation in the US and China in terms of government orders is lip service.
Does anybody have any science fiction recommendations along these lines?
USA government seem willing to use its tech sector to achieve political ends too, case in point being the interference President Trump has made in European companies in trying to win contacts for 5G by smearing Chinese companies.
In USA everything appears to serve a capitalist elite.
As, IIRC, Jerome K Jerome said "under capitalism man exploits man, under communism it's the other way around".
Under these specific instances of Western Capitalism and State Controlled Economy they seem rather close to being the same thing: a system in which an elite cadre immorally exploit the rest of society.