I thought it interesting that the "public software" terminology was floated again. There was some debate in 2016 when Nadia Eghbal brought it up as an alternative to "open source".
Thanks! When I first grasped the idea, it really felt like one of the few FLOSS projects that could actually change the world. It has been a bit over 5 years since then, but I still believe in it.
That said, we've had a number of technical and organizational hurdles to overcome. As an entirely volunteer driven effort, which has gone lengths to avoid sacrificing core FLO values, progress is not always visible, and always seems to take longer than we'd hope.
Long-time lurker, never-time poster on HN, I'm a team member and wanted to mention that we had updated the post title since the OP to clarify that it was an application.