>> Standardize the package format of the released versions of each free
>> software project would be a total and desirable revolution. The burden
>> of offering the available software would shift to software developers
>> rather than distributions.
>
> I disagree. The rich variety of distros enables each of us to select
> for our own set of priorities.
>
> As far as shifting the burden to the software developers, I was once
> one of those software developers: The VimOutliner project. I *never*
> would have created a package for VimOutliner. I had other stuff to do,
> including improving VimOutliner.
>
> As a user of a minority packaging system (xbps), I get hurt more than
> most by the lack of xbps packaged drivers and esoteric software, and
> yet I'm still for distros choosing a packaging system or even
> developing their own.
>
> Finally, one package manager is a single point of failure. Imagine if
> systemd took over that one package manager, eliminating the possibility
> of Linux without systemd?
>
> SteveT

Standardise the format in which developers publicly offer for download the code for new versions of the software they create, would make packaging (or port/ebuild creation) easier for distros, freeing up time that can be spent on other things. Standardise the source files is not an obstacle for distros to customize the software they distribute, on the contrary it would make it easier to focus on customizations because the organization of the source file would be predictable.

Obviously conforming to a standardised source file format means more burden for developers, it would help the spread of their software by making it easier for more distros to package it, although as I said it is already quite an effort for many developers to package their software code for download in whatever way they find easiest and let distros create ready-to-install packages (be it binaries or ports/ebuilds) for their distro users.

Since I'm talking about how developers package their code to make it available for download either to users who compile personally or to distro maintainers who create ready-to-use packages and make them available in a repository for their users, this has nothing to do with the damn systemd wanting to contest the place occupied by deb, rpm, xbps and the bloated AppImage and Snap.

Best regards