> I don’t see why the package manager should prevent using it with another library that depends on a different version.
I do. The main reason for Linux distributions to exists is to provide a development and running environment where:
- API/ABIs do not change for the whole lifetime of the distribution. No new features, no new bugs, no new vulnerabilities, so that your production code can run reliably for 5+ years.
- Vulnerabilities are fixed with minimally invasive patches.
- Vulnerabilities are fixed in reasonable times even if the upstream development stopped. Patches are well tested against the set of packages in the distribution.
You simply cannot have these 3 features together if a distribution ships 10 different version of each library.
It's already a ton of work to maintain packages in stable distributions.
(Go ahead and downvote me a ton)