Calculator: Flatpak Version for all platforms

Created on 9 May 2019 · 3Comments · Source: microsoft/calculator

Problem Statement

Linux needs a very nice calculator
Evidence or User Insights

It is wonderful that Microsoft has decided to join the Linux ecosystem. I believe a very good gesture to the community would be a flatpak version of the Windows Calculator..

The benefit of this is that Microsoft would have created what is in essence a universal binary. The flatpak would run on WSL2, Linux, Chrome OS, Librem Phone, and anywhere else that flatpak runs. This would inevitably include a hyper-visor for Mac if and when such a beast is created :-)
This would be historic as the first Microsoft sponsored app which runs across platforms with no recompilation necessary.
Non-Goals

No need for Microsoft to be the sole support provider for this project. The community will help drive development.
No need to support multiple Linux distributions as flatpak runs everywhere.
No need to simultaneously support a Windows-specific version as flatpak runs everywhere,
Low-Fidelity Concept

The experience would be simple. Windows calculator for Linux. Since flatpak is the only container format that runs on ALL Linux distributions, Windows Calculator would be everywhere.

Enhancement

Source

nycnikato

Most helpful comment

WSL2 suggests that developers should now focus on writing code compatible with the Linux kernel instead of the NT kernel. This way the code could run on Windows 10 with WSL 2, natively on the many Linux distributions, on MacOS thanks to brew,... IMHO the pre-WSL2 apps should now be considered as legacy (in terms of code, not functionally obviously) and developers should start porting these legacy apps to a Linux environment. This way their apps will be able to run anywhere, including Windows 10.

And maybe one day Linux will become the default kernel for Windows 10 and WSN (Windows Subsystem for NT) will become the subsystem. I asked the WSL team about it on Twitter but didn't get any answer so far: https://twitter.com/_cluxter_/status/1126154231562612736

Fingers crossed 🤞

cluxter on 10 May 2019

👍4 👎1

All 3 comments

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MicrosoftIssueBot on 9 May 2019

Thanks for the suggestion! It looks like you've found #113 where Linux support has been discussed before. flatpak is certainly an interesting project to _package and distribute_ Linux apps, but in order to use it you have to first have an app that _builds and runs_ on Linux, and we're not going to get there anytime soon, unfortunately.