We have such a myriad "dependency bundling technologies", dating back over more than a decade by now, and the situation has only been made worse. It's way too

We have such a myriad "dependency bundling technologies", dating back over more than a decade by now, and the situation has only been made worse. It's way too comfortable for _developers_ to bundle dependencies. That already explains why there is pressure to do so. You yourself look at this with developer glasses. I think users couldn't care less or may even actively avoid dependency bundling. Cause my impression, as a user, is that not only they almost never work right, but they actually make compatibility _harder_, not easier. And they decrease desktop environment integration, they increase overhead in every metric, they make patching things harder, etc. etc. Can you find other reasons why all these technologies you mention are not flying at all for desktop Linux users? And speaking as a developer, the software I develop is usually packaged by distros (and not myself), so I'm very well aware of the "sweating" involved. And despite that, I will say: it is not as bad as the alternatives presented.