[mattdm]

In Fedora, we don't "support" third-party packages or installation of software because we can't do much about it if something is wrong. You should go to the provider of the software for help.

But we certainly support your _ability_ to install and run whatever you want. It's your computer, and it's your OS.

[mike_hearn]

Regardless of the party line, in practice there's no big distinction between not caring if it works or not and not allowing it. The difference only matters for highly technical people with lots of time on their hands. For everyone else, if it's not a paved road it's not a road they can travel on at all, and so in practice Linux historically did not "support" third party software in any meaningful way.

And although I was making that argument to Fedora decades ago, it's only recently that this point has been accepted with official support by Red Hat for stuff like Flatpak. Of course other distros developed their own thing as always so it's still not really ideal. But at least the principle was now accepted that third party apps should have a properly supported way to thrive. Far too late, but it's done.