Information has been leaked from various anonymous sources about a discussion on the possibility of using the Aurora mobile operating system on some of Huawei's new devices, within which Rostelecom supplies the brand with a version of the Sailfish OS operating system under its brand.
This possibility who are considering Huawei to be able to use Aurora has so far been limited to just one discussion on the possibility of using this operating system, so no plans have been presented at the moment.
Sailfish is partly a proprietary mobile operating system with an open system environment, but closed by the user shell, the basic mobile applications, the QML components to create the graphical interface, an intermediate layer for launching Android applications, a intelligent text input and a data synchronization system.
The open system environment is built on the basis of Mer (MeeGo fork), which since April has been developed as an integral part of Sailfish and the Mer Nemo distribution package packages. On top of the Mer system components, a graph stack based on the Wayland and Qt5 library is released.
The debate was attended by the Minister of Digital Development and Communications, Konstantin Noskov and the Chief Executive Officer of Huawei.
The meeting also raised the issue of creating a joint production of chips and software in Russia. The information was not confirmed in Rostelecom, but he expressed his willingness to cooperate.
Huawei declined to comment on the published information. At the same time, the company is developing its own Hongmeng OS (Arc OS) mobile platform, which provides compatibility with Android applications.
Hongmeng OS is coming this year
The first launch of Hongmeng OS is scheduled for the fourth quarter of this year. Two options will be offered: for China and for the rest of the smartphone market in the world.
Hongmeng OS is claimed to have been in development since 2012 and ready for early 2018, but it was not delivered due to the use of Android as the main platform and partnership with Google.
There is evidence that for testing in China, the first batch of 1 million smartphones with Hongmeng OS has already been distributed. Technical details have yet to be released and it is unclear if the platform is based on Android code or only includes a layer for compatibility.
Huawei has long offered its own edition of Android: EMUI, so it may be the basis for Hongmeng OS.
Huawei could offer different systems
The interest in the alternative mobile systems of Huawei calls restrictive measures established by the United States Department of Commerce, that lead to Huawei limiting access to Android services, falling under the business agreement with Google, as well as to sever a business relationship with ARM.
At the same time, the measures introduced to restrict exports do not apply to open source software developed by companies and non-profit organizations registered in the United States.
Huawei will be able to continue building an Android firmware based on the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) and release updates based on the published open source code, But this is limited to the fact that the system will not be able to pre-install a suite of Google applications.
Finally we can't forget about AppGallery which is Huawei's official application distribution platform for Android.
So this can give us indications that the new operating system in which Huawei is declining will be based on Android (practically the safest) or it will have a compatibility layer (it is an option but requires more time and development, but the possibility is not ruled out).
Although apparently Huawei's plans are to have an operating system only for China and the rest of the countries to offer a different mobile operating system.
I think that the best choice is Sailfish OS. This operating System have a high performance on the smartphone, but we need can install on any smartphone from Huawei Y6 II to the HIgh Gamma.