I'm a long time Ubuntu PPAs user and they work like expected, for precise reasons (the parent makes a generic consideration about 3rd party repos, so I introduc

I'm a long time Ubuntu PPAs user and they work like expected, for precise reasons (the parent makes a generic consideration about 3rd party repos, so I introduce the discussion with Ubuntu). PPAs build in environments matching the chosen distributions, so as long as the builds are properly setup and the user chooses the correct one (which is automatic, with the standard tools), dependencies will work out as expected. The last time I had a discussion about perceivedly broken PPAs with somebody on HN, it turns out that he was abusing this system, by not using the proper suite (distribution). I'm not sure how this works for Debian (I think PPAs also allow Debian suites), but if there isn't such [widespread] support for 3rd party repositories, then this subject should get more consideration. Regarding shared libraries, if they wouldn't exist, operating systems would would take an order of magnitude more in space. I'm not a big fan of an 80 GB Ubuntu; if the public accepts that, that's fine, but shared libraries have a specific purpose.