[zackb]

This was perhaps the biggest reason I moved to Linux full-time about a year ago. I just got sick of not being able to write software and have people use it. The solution might be an "I trust this author" VS Code style dialog and that's it, but even that misses the mark a bit. I've been having a blast building on Linux and miss almost nothing about macOS. And the things I do miss I write programs for [1][2] and give them to people. Who would have guessed that would ever be so hard.

1. https://github.com/zackb/tether

2. https://github.com/zackb/hyprwat

[reikonomusha]

Packaging software for Linux users is a nightmare. Unless

- your program is extraordinarily simple

- you can manage to statically link libc

- you can ship (or statically link) all .so files

- you can ensure your app can run in a sandbox

- you limit the distros you build for

- your app can be built by whatever is on flathub

etc., most solutions to shipping software simply don't work out-of-the-box. Despite the kernel being reasonably stable, userspace APIs are a mess of incompatible.

[zackb]

This is a great point, and you are right. However, using cpack+cmake makes the packaging pretty easy, gets the dependencies right for you. The problem is in dealing with all the package various manager repos.

[hamstergene]

macOS and Windows both used to allow running arbitrary binaries from a web page. Linux GUI users get away purely because it’s unpopular target for as scammers, once naive grandmas and 12-year olds start using it, I’m sure there will be comparable amount of hurdle to just give another person a binary.