Huawei unveils laptop running self-developed HarmonyOS as Windows licence expire
37 comments
·May 8, 2025nazgulsenpai
Teever
This is true but it's also true in this instance that the adversary was already antagonistic and was moving towards self-sufficiency at their own pace while using your technology to do so.
The reasoning behind cutting them off through the methods you listed is to force them to move to self-sufficiency on your terms without as much access to your technology.
tengbretson
Isn't this basically how we got Lua?
mensetmanusman
Good, that increases global compute diversity. It’s a win win. America benefits if MS has more competition.
ChocolateGod
I find it interesting not only that HarmonyOS is using a microkernel but also that its userland application language is compiled TypeScript.
https://developer.huawei.com/consumer/en/doc/harmonyos-guide...
I'd certainly be interested in benchmarks of running TypeScript via ArkTS vs transpiled JS in in V8.
overflowcat
ArkTS compiles into Ark Bytecode, and there is JIT on the user's device. According to feedback from the developer community, ArkTS is slower than V8, but Huawei has incorporated a multi-threading model into it.
kridsdale1
So it’s still full of Microsoft stack.
coliveira
Typescript is open source. It is a benefit for Huawei to use a language that is deeply supported by Microsoft, so clients have an easier time transitioning between ecosystems.
dzdt
I'm confused by the premise here, as repeated in the title and initial sentence:
Huawei Technologies on Thursday unveiled its first laptop that runs the company’s self-developed operating system, HarmonyOS, following the expiration of its Microsoft Windows license for personal computers (PCs) in March.
What kind of Windows license are we talking about here? I understood that Huawei is a hardware manufacturer. Any Windows license on a laptop they deliver would be an OEM license attached to the device, right? Are they saying that Huawei lost its contract to sell Windows OEM licenses with the devices it manufactures?
Is that a thing? Does Microsoft say to hardware makers that no, you cannot sell your hardware with Windows? What kind of dispute between Microsoft and Huawei leads to that outcome?
EwanToo
You need a license from Microsoft to resell Windows licenses as an OEM.
US sanctions against Huawei mean that they can't sign a renewal.
dzdt
Okay some further searching indicates the license that is expiring is Microsoft's export license to export Windows to Huawei. After the previous round of sanctions on Huawei, Microsoft had applied for and received a license to continue selling Windows copies to Huawei for it to resell. That is expiring, and is not expected to be renewed.
So its really an export license from the US government that is expiring.
ferguess_k
I think it's targeting the government/corporation world -> if your Windows licenses expire, you can switch to HarmonyOS.
nashashmi
I feel great about a competing OS to further the imagination of developers and service providers to make their offerings more platform independent.
I feel great about a third platform pushing the UI space to something newer (like iOS created touch centric UI).
I feel great about a new approach to kernel science. (Like ChromeOS did).
But I am afraid of a bill-gates era move to crush competitors. (Let’s credit BG for making the innovation space un-innovative deeply linear and unifying!)
And I am afraid of the interfaces I have come to love be destroyed and brought to ruin by “copying” upcoming platforms (like in Windows 8/10/11).
And I am afraid that consumers and developers will be segmented and overwhelmed with new styles of doing things that they will give up entirely.
coliveira
> consumers and developers will be segmented and overwhelmed
Plurality in the computer market is a good thing. You should be more scared of the monopoly of a company like MS over desktop OS for personal computers. That's what made it possible for the government to enact barriers against other countries, like they're doing with China.
idle_zealot
From the HarmonyOS webpage:
>Make development enjoyable with distributed technologies
>Hardware synergy for resource sharing
>HarmonyOS treats different smart devices into a single super device, behind which all devices work collaboratively and share their resources to offer a seamless experience for users.
Does anyone know what this means, because it sounds amazing. Does the OS natively VPN all your devices and expose their storage/computes/etc in a Plan9-esque way?
ferguess_k
Not sure about the technical details, but I think it's a bit like iOS -> everything must go through the internal shop.
Not very exciting IMO.
garylkz
> Does the OS natively VPN all your devices
Uhm, I don't think so. How did you came up with that impression?
It sounds more like IOT
spencerflem
Harmony OS is quite neat, a lot like Google's Fushia or Genode.
I hope US/Europe's OSs can learn something from it.
throwaway74354
Eclipse Oniro is an interesting proposal to build on top of OpenHarmony. Kind of "Palm/HP webOS and Firefox OS were right conceptually, but too early", minus Linux kernel and middleware.
tensor
Aside from HarmonyOS, this was the first time I've heard about WPS Office. It's amazing that it's been around for so long and apparently is so widely used, yet this is the first I'm learning about it.
devinprater
I hope it at least has accessibility features.
cpldcpu
Is it ARM or x86 based?
jmclnx
Too bad they did not go with Linux, but like M/S and Apple I guess the want to "protect" their users.
But it does look interesting and they probably have a huge worldwide market that the US is now locking themselves out of.
joshuaissac
> Too bad they did not go with Linux
The initial smartphone version of HarmonyOS 2 from a few years ago was just an Android reskin,[1] despite claims to the contrary from Huwaei, and unlike HarmonyOS 1 for IoT devices. It remains to be seen if HarmonyOS for PC really is an independent OS, a fork or a reskin/distro of an existing OS.
1. https://www.techspot.com/news/88512-huawei-harmonyos-20-poor...
severino
Well, coincidentally, I read this news a couple of days ago about some new laptop offering by Huawei running Linux
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2025/05/huawei-matebook-x-pro-20...
coliveira
You said correctly, the US is locking itself out of this market. Huawei would have no incentive to create a new OS if it wasn't for crazy laws shutting them off the market. Now, Chinese business that live in the Huawei ecosystem have a great incentive to at least give a try to this new OS.
mensetmanusman
China blocked the US out of the software market on many fronts. Good for them, it helped them make software a part of their economy unlike the EU.
suraci
i can still remember that the Linux community blocked Russians from maintaining the Linux kernel
i guess they were "protect"ing their users
:)
Additionally, I have always been curious to know whether the U.S. export ban applies to Linux and any other open source projects
craftkiller
The OpenBSD project at least believes that the US restrictions on the export of cryptography would have impacted them. Its why they banned US developers working on cryptography long ago.
> Of course, our project needs people to work on these systems. If any non-American cryptographer who meets the constraints listed earlier is interested in helping out with embedded cryptography in OpenBSD, please contact us.
dismalaf
> Additionally, I have always been curious to know whether the U.S. export ban applies to Linux and any other open source projects
It does, the Linux kernel maintainers eventually said that's the reason for banning Russian maintainers.
aleph_minus_one
> It does, the Linux kernel maintainers eventually said that's the reason for banning Russian maintainers.
As craftkiller interline in a sibling post (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43927430): would this not rather imply that you should ban US-American maintainers (at least on some subsystems)?
If Russian maintainers write some Linux kernel code, this will cause no problem for a US export ban. On the other hand, if US-American maintainer does, it might.
SahAssar
How does that even work? By definition the code is "exported" to every country since it is open source.
It could be argued that you could ban imports from russia by not allowing them to contribute code, but an export ban is basically impossible.
simion314
It seems they were following the sanctions, plenty of Russians that are not Zed patriots that left Ruzzia and they can freely work.
Romanulus
[dead]
It just seems like common sense that if you impose sanctions, tariffs, embargoes, etc. at a wide enough scale to a determined enough "adversary", they will just become more resilient, self-sufficient, and antagonistic than they were if simply left alone.
I don't know the answers to the questions of international cooperation and economic imbalances, but I am pretty confident that this is not the way. I haven't seen sufficient evidence to the contrary.
All of that being said, it's great to see a new operating system that (if I understand correctly) isn't just derived from an existing one.