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Huawei vs. USA: New software... or not?

28.6.2019

Translation: machine translated

Huawei wants to stick with Android. Nevertheless, the Chinese company is looking around for alternatives. These could come from within the company, Finland or Russia.

The American company Google is still officially allowed to do business with the Chinese company Huawei until the end of August 2019. This is according to an exceptional authorisation granted to the trading relationship shortly after the general ban a few weeks ago. What comes after that is still written in the stars. A longer collaboration with Huawei is conceivable, but no company of Huawei's size and importance is stupid enough not to think of a plan B.

What if all else fails? What if privileged cooperation with Google is no longer possible?

Currently available devices are still not affected by the political turmoil surrounding Huawei and the USA. Nothing definitive can yet be said about future devices.

After speculation from users Adr1vn and Chevynator, it's time for an overview.

Secretly hope that Huawei brings its own OS soon, that would be very interesting for the market.

Adr1vn

But I suspect it will simply be an Android fork ala Amazon. Would just give it a different store and OS name but still basically be Android, which would probably be better for Huawei.

Chevynator

Sailfish OS: Android, but different

Sailfish OS describes itself as "the independent, partner-friendly OS that promotes innovation". The operating system from Finland is similar to Android, but has a different kernel. Sailfish still runs on a Linux kernel, whereas Android has customised the kernel for itself.

Sailfish was created by a group of developers who worked on the similarly structured MeeGo operating system. MeeGo, which ran on the Nokia N9 in 2010, flopped. However, the developers had already invested a billion US dollars in their project and did not give up. MeeGo became Jolla Ltd, a company that supports the Sailfish Community and develops software. In the meantime, however, Sailfish enjoys a broad community that supports the project, demands features and builds them in.

And: Sailfish OS has the great advantage that it is fully compatible with the Android ecosystem.

Aurora OS

The Russians, who else? According to media reports, Aurora OS could take over from Android on Huawei devices. The news comes from the Russian magazine The Bell. The Bell is still quite new on the market, but with Yelizaveta Osetinskaya, the magazine has the strong backing of a former RBC journalist. According to Radio Svoboda, she is said to have fallen out with the Russian government by covering the Panama Papers.

In any case, the Russians have their own operating system. Apparently. Because there is neither an official website nor anything else online. There is a Linux distribution called Aurora OS (via archive.org], but it was developed for netbooks. According to industry service Distrowatch, development, which began as Eeebuntu for Asus Eee PCs, has been discontinued. It can therefore currently be assumed that Aurora OS is either Chinese/Russian sabre-rattling in the direction of the USA, or that the few facts actually point to a new operating system.

The Bell claims to know that Aurora OS has been in development since 2012. It is a version of Jolla's Sailfish OS. The Russian billionaire Grigory Berezkin has been one of Jolla's co-owners since 2014. In the same year, he had signed an agreement with the Russian Ministry of Communications to create a "national Russian mobile operating system". Berezkin also has ties to a company called Open Mobile Platform (OMP), a Russian software developer. OMP's website speaks highly of "Sailfish for Russia". OMP is 75 per cent owned by the telecommunications group Rostelecom, Russia's largest internet service provider.

Is this about Aurora?

Is this Aurora OS?

The home screen under OMP's Sailfish version

The Notification Drawer under OMP's Sailfish — The home screen under OMP's Sailfish version

Sailfish is not widely used in Russia, despite Berezkin's announcement that the Russian version of Sailfish is not only for government structures, but also for normal users. Only the Inoi R7, a phone manufactured for Russia in China, runs on a Russian version of Sailfish from OMP. Little is known about the phone, but our colleagues at SailfishMods.de seem to like it.

The pro-government magazine Sputnik News is also aware of scheduled talks between Huawei and the Russian Ministry of Communications on whether Aurora OS could be used. The talks are scheduled for autumn, probably after the decision on a possible further cooperation between Google and Huawei has been made.

HongMeng OS

Little is still known about the operating system developed by Huawei, which is called HongMeng OS. However, the name seems to be confirmed, as Huawei has registered corresponding patents. A specific patent must be registered for each jurisdiction in which HongMeng is to be rolled out. This can be used to determine where the operating system would be used if it were to split with Google Android.

Switzerland
Thailand
Cambodia
Mexico
Australia
Korea
Malaysia
Indonesia
New Zealand
Canada
Spain
Philippines

This does not mean that HongMeng is the alternative for Android and that it will necessarily come. Huawei has publicly stated that the company would like to stay with Android. The patents and trademarks merely mean that Huawei is preparing for a possible launch.

What HongMeng can, is or does is still completely unknown.

The meaning behind the name 鸿蒙

But we know one thing thanks to user xividyzf. In a comment, he writes in response to my assumed transcription of Hongmeng and the translation to "Red Dream":

I am a Chinese. The name Hong Meng has nothing to do with

red dream" at all. The correct Chinese characters are 鸿蒙. "xividyzf

Translation:

I am Chinese. The name Hong Meng has nothing to do with «Red Dream». The correct Chinese characters are 鸿蒙.

xividyzf

Surprisingly, the operating system is called "Hongmeng" in Pinyin. However, the characters are completely different to those that can be translated as "Red Dream". Because "Red Dream" looks like this: 红梦.

The effective name 鸿蒙 is an allusion to Chinese history, according to a thread on the Quora question platform.

Huawei's Hongmeng, or 鸿蒙, describe a period before time. The Hongmeng era describes a period before Pangu (盘古), the first living being and creator of everything, hatched from his egg, separated yin and yang into heaven and earth with his axe and pushed heaven away from earth. Before all this happened, before Pangu even came into his egg, Hongmeng ruled. Hongmeng is the state of chaos before order came into the world. For some time now, the word "Hongmeng" has been used as a proxy for "chaotic past times".

An indication of how the software is doing?

Apropos: Internationally, Hongmeng could be known as "Ark OS" or "Oak OS". Corresponding patents have been filed.

Android despite breaking off the relationship

Android is still in the cards as an operating system. The reason for this is that the operating system has always been designed to be used by everyone for free. This is called the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) and is provided by Google itself. AOSP is a pure version of Android that anyone can, should and may modify as they wish. All the close partnerships with brands such as Nokia, Huawei, BQ and others were only added later. That would be Chevynator's solution: simply build an Android fork and then work with it.

It is therefore still possible that Huawei will rely on Android and instead of actively employing its employees to develop the software before the release, bring its Emui stories to AOSP as an addendum. The result would be slightly delayed updates, but this would not have any significant impact on the large landscape of Android distributions and update cycles. <p

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Dominik Bärlocher

Senior Editor

dominik.baerlocher@digitecgalaxus.ch

Journalist. Author. Hacker. A storyteller searching for boundaries, secrets and taboos – putting the world to paper. Not because I can but because I can’t not.

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