Ubuntu tried this - how'd that go?
Second issue is: how do I use it? How can I install it on MY devices?
I'm all for privacy and I want to is it, just seems like a dream and it will never come to fruition
It solves a _development_ problem, in that it reduces the amount of work needed to allow an application to reach a larger number of devices. Basically the same reason for things like React Native and PWAs.
> Ubuntu tried this - how'd that go?
So because someone else failed at solving a particular problem in a particular way previously, we should simply give up on it?
That's great for developers, but how does that help users? As a user, I would rather use something built specifically for the device (and os) I'm using, I've used enough things that were supposed to work everywhere that it's a major turn off at this point.
If developers want to share code cross platform, really, the way to do it is write a shared core logic (probably in C, because that is available everywhere), and then write the UI from scratch everywhere, conforming to the platform guidelines (unless it's a media player). It's more work than hoping a write once run eveywhere will work well, but it delivers a much better result.
It helps users by providing apps.
Purism phone is very niche product. It is unreasonable to think that a lot of developers will start writing their application for PureOS. But hopefully some of them can port app if it will be easy enough. So instead of OS without almost any apps you will have OS with some apps.