This is totally true, but I think it's the opposite approach that would have actually made a difference here. Saying "we know these ABIs won't be stable, eithe

This is totally true, but I think it's the opposite approach that would have actually made a difference here. Saying "we know these ABIs won't be stable, either practically, or by design, so this is where the OS ends" Then Linux package managers would have made it easy to eg. install local (eg. per user, or in a folder) libraries or software. Of course it was always possible, setting various $PATH variables etc. but because it wasn't easy (and you're immediately out of the ecosystem) all focus has been on the root user and singleton approach. Static linking was put to one side too. In doing so we made the presentation of the "operating system" a full ecosystem of libraries, too complex to be a defined layer to interface with. But the kernel realised the importance of stable ABI layer, so now we have containers instead.