This is what I've been working on with LiveG OS, whose desktop environment, gShell, is written in HTML/CSS/JS: https://liveg.tech/os
The OS is also designed to run on mobile devices, so there's some cross-platform consistency between the system on desktop and mobile devices.
It's currently designed to run web apps, but the hope is to also include support for typical Linux GTK and Qt apps (or any app that uses Xwindows) soon to aid daily driveability.
The current release can't do much yet, but we'll be releasing our next Alpha version in about a week or two which include a few more useful features on top of what's already available on our site!
Of course, yeah Discord is a bit of a closed-source walled garden, but we're considering setting up a Matrix.org server some point soon as an open replacement for our current community.
We currently release all Alpha versions onto our site at https://liveg.tech/os/get, so there's no need to 'wait' as such to try out the system in its current state! As for being notified as to when we'll release the next version, we normally let everyone know through Mastodon, as well as on other social networks such as YouTube and even (dare I say it) Twitter — sorry, I mean X.
But it might be worth us setting up some sort of email-based notifier to let people know when new releases are available, so I'll take your advice onboard!
The OS is also designed to run on mobile devices, so there's some cross-platform consistency between the system on desktop and mobile devices.
It's currently designed to run web apps, but the hope is to also include support for typical Linux GTK and Qt apps (or any app that uses Xwindows) soon to aid daily driveability.
The current release can't do much yet, but we'll be releasing our next Alpha version in about a week or two which include a few more useful features on top of what's already available on our site!