Whether or not that is true (and what kind of bugs) might depend on the specific software. Furthermore, sometimes changes to external dependencies may introduce

Whether or not that is true (and what kind of bugs) might depend on the specific software. Furthermore, sometimes changes to external dependencies may introduce bugs (which might or might not be malicious; both kinds can and do happen), which might be fixed in a later version but that might take some time. Another alternative is that if the dependency is only one or two files, you can just make your own copy of them and use those instead, and maintain them by yourself, reviewing any changes to the official version and applying them to your own if you consider them necessary; this might also allow you to fix bugs that haven't been corrected and to omit features that you do not need. Another reason you might wish to avoid external dependencies is if they cannot be packaged together with the software; if they come from a different source, then there is the possibility that the external source may be no longer available (which might or might not be malicious; again, both kinds can and do happen). (If they are not very large and only one or two files, then you can just include it with your software.) If your software uses external dependencies, you might also specify exact versions by both version numbers and cryptographic hashes. The use of cryptographic hashes will mitigate some types of attacks as well as to potentially allow finding other copies if the source that you got it from is no longer available. Another issue, depending on the kind of dependencies, may be interfaces with other software (possibly including the operating system), in which case there may potentially be multiple possible implementations, and the system administrator may wish to install their own. In the package manager for operating system design that I had considered, this is also an issue that I had considered. A package can have multiple identifiers of any kinds. Additionally, there are other features of the operating system which can help many things. Hopefully, these things will be able avoid many kind of problems.