Is this surprising? Weren’t there really just two? Isn’t harmony a form of android?

Maybe I’m way out of date on this.

It's not android based anymore.

Yeah there's only like 4 kinda if you count Linux.

What I don't understand us why they had to go and write a totally new OS instead using Linux. They might be able to sell it to a bunch of Chinese, but how will it fare globally? Now there'll be yet another platform to develop apps for. It's like that xkcd comic about standards: there are now X competing standards

Looking at smart TVs, we're also stuck with several incompatible systems (Samsung's Tizen, LG's webOS, Amazon FireTV's new non-android crap, …). In my experience, most users don't care, except for some power users. If people can't install a Lemmy app on their BrandNewOS, they wouldn't even notice, because all the "common ones" like Facebook are there and they didn't even consider looking for more niche options. And even the more popular niche options sometimes get community apps, like TizenTube (adfree YouTube) or Switchfin (Jellyfin on the freaking Nintendo Switch).

Also, whether we like it or not, "hey Claude port this android app to harmony" is a thing.

From 2019 to 2024, versions 1 to 4.3 (4.5 TV) of the operating system were built by integrating the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) with OpenHarmony, allowing it to support both HarmonyOS and Android apps.[11] The current iteration of HarmonyOS became known as HarmonyOS NEXT (later it was renamed HarmonyOS 5 in launched of Pura X). HarmonyOS NEXT was announced on August 4, 2023, and officially launched on October 22, 2024.[12] It also replaced the OpenHarmony multi-kernel system with its own HongMeng Kernel at its core and removed all Android code. Since version 5, HarmonyOS only supports apps in its native "App" format.[13][14]

HarmonyOS 5.x+ both discards the common Unix-like Linux kernel and replaces the previous multiple-kernel, kernel agnostic system from OpenHarmony with its own bespoke HarmonyOS microkernel as a single framework.

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HarmonyOS

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_operating_system

Okay, but this isn't all that surprising, to me at least, considering there are really only a couple other actually viable¹ options ( linux things like ubuntu touch not included since only a single phone brand uses it as an option ).

¹ viable as in has major corporate support and isn't something you usually are the one installing by hand

Edit:

Nothing against projects like ubuntu touch, but I kinda meant viable as in easy enough that if you replaced an older person android for it, they wouldn't struggle any more than they currently do. Also, that other companies see as viable and worthy enough for them to spend the resources on trying to support, hardware wise.

Huawei devices here still come with the AOSP based EMUI. Looking forward to when I can try HarmonyOS.

I think it is exciting that they came up with their own stack from the kernel up to the programming environment. Plus, we all saw Russian developers being locked away from contributing to the Linux kernel, who says something similar won't happen to Chinese developers?

It was but not anymore. Now it is its own thing from the kernel to the userland, no Android code and it is not based on Linux.

My bad, 4 that people actually use

Linux isn't very efficient, since it needs to run on everything from IoT devices to supercomputers. HarmonyOS can run on the Linux kernel for laptops and PCs, but can also be used with a dedicated microkernel that is optimised for smaller devices such as smartphones and wearables.

the only problem is its proprietary codebase.

It is mixed source. It is based on OpenHarmony but with proprietary extensions.