When does a 'desktop app' become a 'bastardised web' (sic). Is it when it communicates via http? When it renders HTML? Lots of apps that you may be running (e.g. iTunes, the Mac app store) do this. If it's well integrated with the host OS, I don't see what the problem is; would you rather it weren't cross-platform, or it used another cross-platform framework, or it were several separate codebases?