[tyoverby]

Let's say that you and I both create a library. You try to publish your C++ library to the standard debian repository, and I'll try to publish mine to cpam, npm, pip, etc...

If you actually manage to get your library included, then we can compare how long it takes to update your library.

[Sanddancer]

Systems like Debian, though, have the ability to add custom repositories. So after the initial, possibly small package that just configures the sources.list, everything's handled with all the other updates. That's something that npm, etc, can't do.

[pathsjs]

Npm and many other package managers support custom repositories just fine

[paulddraper]

Sure. I publish to deb repos all the time.

(I've found Bintray to be the easiest.)

[tyoverby]

I didn't say "a" deb repo, I said "the standard debian repository". Just like when I'm talking about NPM, I'm talking about the main NPM repository, not my company's private NPM server.

[paulddraper]

Well, you've chosen a terrible comparison then.

How many NPM repos are there? Just one, too-big-to-fail, centralized repository.

Don't ding apt/deb just because people setup their own repos rather than put all the code in the world into one bucket.

There's a lot more inconvenient things than adding the /etc/apt/sources

[tyoverby]

> How many NPM repos are there? Just one, too-big-to-fail, centralized repository.

There are actually plenty, it's just that they're usually found on-prem at a company.