Distro packages don't solve the needs of software developers. They solve the need of distros, which are different (and conflicting) with the needs of software

Distro packages don't solve the needs of software developers. They solve the need of distros, which are different (and conflicting) with the needs of software developers. Therefore you will always have an eternal struggle between language-level package managers who work for developers and system ones that work for distros. If there was some simple way to lob a tarball over the wall and get package inclusion on Debian, Fedora, Gentoo, etc., then that would be one thing. In reality however the number of random GitHub repos >> the number of package maintainers. I know that Debian uses a variety of technical and social methods to discourage new packages, and most people's software just isn't popular enough to overcome those barriers, even if some of the reason they're not popular is because they're not well-packaged (sort of a catch-22 there). Not to mention people who install via apt or rpm are perpetually out of date. Now compare that with pip or rubygems--one package to maintain, installs more-or-less everywhere, accepts packages regardless of popularity, end users are more often up-to-date. Better for software developers' problems in every single dimension. Sure that's bad for Fedora maintainers, but what are Fedora maintainers doing for me?