You'll invent new standard and have N+1 standards. It's not as if package formats can't be declarative - just that some issue always turns up in package X or Y

You'll invent new standard and have N+1 standards. It's not as if package formats can't be declarative - just that some issue always turns up in package X or Y that the declarative format didn't anticipate. I think there may indeed be tools to convert these formats but in the end the devils are always in some distro-specific set of details that make life miserable. e.g. your library has some option enabled or doesn't and some other package in that distro needs it and so on and on.