> There are distros where each of the three is shipped with the OS > All three are also portable and hermetic enough, though, that they can safely be used on o

> There are distros where each of the three is shipped with the OS > All three are also portable and hermetic enough, though, that they can safely be used on other operating systems The original statement was: "If you use an OS that doesn't do package management, maybe. Linux distros work just fine." So, some distros. > That kind of thing [installing without requiring sudo] is still fairly marginal in the overall Linux landscape. Indeed. > Both NixOS and GuixSD have their own issues and can present special challenges to users Indeed. > Homebrew has been useful to many people for a long time, and it absolutely excels in UX. But the fundamentals are lacking Key being: it has been both useful, and it excels in UX. "Lacking in fundamentals" is important to a vanishingly small number of people who care about a random set of preferences they define as "fundamentals" (and probably don't even agree on this set). > I get the defensiveness and I understand that Homebrew has strengths, but imo the standard critique along the lines of the OP is essentially correct. There's no defensiveness around "you claim X, but if you dig not even that deep you find that your claims are misleading at best".