How to Create Unofficial Linux Desktop Apps? [closed]

Question

I am a new developer and I have recently noticed that several applications do not officially support Linux desktop apps. However, I've seen developers create their own open-source unofficial versions of these apps, and they perform almost as well as the native apps on Windows or Mac. These applications also work with the specific service's account. I am interested in creating some of these unofficial apps for Linux.

During my research online, I didn't find a lot of answers specific to creating unofficial apps for services that already exist. Most resources I found were about creating your own app from scratch. I am looking for guidance on how to create unofficial versions of existing services.

For example, I came across these unofficial apps that caught my interest:

1. WALC: An unofficial WhatsApp client for Linux (https://github.com/WAClient/WALC)
2. Notion Reborn: An unofficial Notion.so client for Linux (https://snapcraft.io/notion-snap-reborn)

I would like to understand the process of creating such apps. What are the legal implications? What technologies are generally used? How do these apps interact with the official services?

Any guidance, resources, or advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

Answer 1

The main issue is the interfacing with the backends. If the service provides an official API, then this is easy. Whatsapp Business platform or Google Maps for example do this. If there is no official API, then you either work around that, for example as a wrapper around an existing web client, like the WALC, or you need to sniff traffic, try to see what a client on a different platform (e.g. Windows or Mac) does and start re-engineering.

When you start re-engineering, there may be a number of legal issues. Banks, for example, will actively suppress all non-official use. If you're American, the DMCA may be in your way too.

And then comes the coding. You may choose to make the GUI a look-alike of the app on a different platform, or you might provide a command line version only. Or anything else.

Answer 2

I think you may be confused on what the word "unofficial" means in this context. These apps are all programmed by programmers, or in some cases, modified and refactored and converted to other languages or platforms. There is no automatic process to do this or anything like that. Of course there are tools to help compile between languages, but those are out of the scope here because they are never "magic bullets" that can function without already having extensive programming knowledge in one or both languages in question.

The apps you are asking about and have linked are actually independently developed versions of the official app or re-coded/built from the ground-up applications to fill a need because there is no official application. They were made from scratch.