may we have a dead simple bulletproof all-free OS that gets old PCs online without a Google account, and does nothing else? How come there is no all-Free Software tool that even tries to do what ChromeOS does without needing an account with The Borg?

Yeah I mean we already have several of them. Android and Linux do everything ChromeOS does, and so much more. Matter of fact any OS with a browser can do anything Chrome can do.

ChromeOS has forks like FydeOS.

It's the number one thing non-Linux users complain about: too much choice.

I don't understand why anyone would complain about that. If you don't care for choice then just pick a random one. I mean you have to "choose" ChromeOS too.

ChromeOS does just one thing and it does it well enough that vendors sold billions of the things last year.

They sold billions because they're cheap as shit. They can do the same with the OSes above.

Productivity apps? Use Google Apps.

No thank you.

Messaging or video calling? Log in to your chat system of choice in a browser window.

Lots of messaging apps don't work in the browser.

what few settings there are are stored in your Google account.

You just said earlier you didn't want a Google account.

All the components are there, including a potential revenue model. Strip out absolutely all the complexity that can possibly be removed, and leave something which can run on any old PC from the last 15 years and gets the user online – and nothing else. How hard can it be? There are no optional extra native apps, and no way to add any.

Again, I can't understand why you would want to not have that option. If you don't want the "complexity", just don't use it.

no fancy add-on cross-distro package managers like Flatpak or Snap.

Oof. Yeah that is a complaint that I share.

The desktop is just Windows-like enough to be instantly familiar, unlike GNOME

I find GNOME far more intuitive than Windows.

There are a couple of projects forked from the basis of ChromiumOS, such as FydeOS, which adds a second authentication system so it can be used behind the Great Firewall of China. We plan to return to FydeOS and take a deeper look soon.

Not sure what "authentication system" they're referring to. FydeOS can be used with a Fyde account, a Google account, both or neither. I think when they take a deeper look it may be what they're looking for.