[takeda]

What language is it in, why not use packaging from the language itself. It would be more likely to work across many different OSes not just Linux.

If it's a binary, why not compile it statically? That way it's a single file and it also will perform faster (using shared objects has overhead)

[philips]

Packaging in the language itself ranges from difficult to impossible for most non-trivial apps. Popular runtimes like python, node, and ruby have many extensions and packages that rely on C and share libraries. Because of that a compiled binary package will not be portable between machines or require that the machine you deploying to have a working compiler to build the C package from source. I have seen vast amounts of engineering effort invested into porting C code to slower "native" code just to make packaging work. With containers you can avoid the mess of trying to share the `/` filesystem namespace with the host and concentrate on getting your application working on a chroot that is portable between Linux kernel systems.

I 100% agree with the compile it statically thing. This is what many major internet properties likes Google do and I would argue part of why Go is so popular. But, it is hard for the vast majority of applications that expect to open files for assets and lack build systems for static compilation.