[mwcampbell]

It is well known that distributed version control systems make it easier for developer soutside of a project's core team to contribute to the project. But it seems to me that package managers are counteracting this, because they encourage a sharp division between user and developer. I'm talking about both OS-level package managers like APT, and programming language/VM-level package managers like Maven, NuGet, RubyGems, npm, and the various Python package management tools.

One solution might be for applications to pull in all of their dependencies as subrepositories in their version control systems. But then where would we stop? At the implementation of the application's main programming language or managed runtime? At the C library? At the operating system itself (assuming the OS is open source)? This would also seem to encourage a single dominant version control system.

So I have no definite answers.

[takluyver]

To play devil's advocate: do compiled languages have the same effect? They create a separation between developers (who use the source) and users (who use binaries). Especially for projects with a long/slow build process, like LibreOffice, this can be a considerable barrier to development.

By contrast, even the biggest codebase you use in a language like Python, you can dive into the code directly. Well, unless it's Software as a Service.

[zeckalpha]

This is kind of how homebrew works for some formula if you specify --head. I find the homebrew model of having a repository of formulae which point to tarballs or repos to work pretty well.