I do not know about this being the case in Germany only; I am in a nearby country and the system is very similar. I also do think it is insane, as the fee is on top of the real estate agent fees, it is specified by the law and unavoidable, and I get a service I do not really need or want and it costs a lot of money.
> Developers don't have to package their project for all distros
Essentially nobody uses the sources we provide. Literally nobody packages them. A few people use our rpm and deb packages, but the vast majority uses a (slightly broken and outdated) docker image built by third party.
You might not like it, and I certainly do not, but unfortunately containers seem to be the best alternative that just works, compared to everything else.