> To me a standalone application is simply a directory with an executable and all dependency-dlls in the same directory / some subdirectory. Not everyone who p

> To me a standalone application is simply a directory with an executable and all dependency-dlls in the same directory / some subdirectory. Not everyone who packages an app is willing to lock all their dependencies into a specific version. Look at dependencies that are usually coming from the system package manager, such as OpenSSL, pandoc, libicu, the timezone database, and whatnot. Sometimes those require updates. Apps may want to pick up those updates. I understand every app packager who says, „I don’t want to cut a new release every time an OpenSSL vulnerability gets patched, or whenever some country decides to update their time zone.“ So vendors may prefer their app to pick up system-level packages rather than ship those along with the app. Docker will update those packages for you every time you build your image, and you don’t depend on the app vendor to cut a release whenever you do. At the same time, containerization helps isolate versioning conflicts that stem from those common dependencies.