[css-flexbox] Horizontal layout containment of inline text

I have been commenting/helping on a stackoverflow use case [1] which is an
attempt to do an horizontal size determination of a flex item based on
inline text content only and using columns, with a height constraint but no
given width constraint.

Just wondering if that's a case Flex could technically handle given the
existing spec?

This is my assessment so far illustrating the browser differences and
inaccurate width determinations:
http://stackoverflow.com/a/27777013/1647538

Or is there a possible nested Flex configuration that could make this use
case work I am missing?

[1] 
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/27694966/make-a-div-containing-css-column
s-have-unlimited-width/27777013#27777013

-B