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One of the best things about Linux systems is having this huge pool of apps that you update centrally that are guaranteed to work on your system.

This is a backwards step, if anything.

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Well, this is what Linus had to say about packaging: "I've seen this firsthand with the other project I've been involved with, which is my divelog application. We make binaries for Windows and OS X. We basically don't make binaries for Linux. Why? Because binaries for Linux desktop applications is a major f*ing pain in the ass. Right. You don't make binaries for Linux. You make binaries for Fedora 19, Fedora 20, maybe there's even like RHEL 5 from ten years ago, you make binaries for debian stable, or actually you don't make binaries for debian stable because debian stable has libraries that are so old that anything that was built in the last century doesn't work. But you might make binaries for debian... whatever the codename is for unstable. And even that is a major pain because (...) debian has those rules that you are supposed to use shared libraries." (August 29, 2014 DebConf Q&A with Linus Torvalds)

This attitude is exactly why Linux has such a horrible, horrible packaging experience. Building cross-distro packages is awful. Teaching users how to install packages is awful. Installing custom apt sources or repos to get newer versions of packages is awful. And we're getting stuck up on some inconsequential thing like a library will be duplicated. Guess what, OSX has been doing it successfully for years.

The Linux community is missing the forest for the trees.

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