[andrewflnr]

I'm going to go ahead and plug the Nix package manager here:

  Nix is a purely functional package manager. This means
  that it can ensure that an upgrade to one package cannot
  break others, that you can always roll back to previous
  version, that multiple versions of a package can coexist
  on the same system, and much more.

So you can all have your own versions of lager or whatever, and still have everything managed sort of nicely. Doesn't solve the "include the docs or not" problem, though. And I'm not sure if it does anything for tmoertel's patching concerns.

http://nixos.org/nix/

[zaphar]

Nix is possibly the only system I know of other than maybe homebrew, strangely enough, that has designed itself sanely.

It solves the security issue the space issue, and also the I need special patches for my version of this lib in my unique application.

[nbouscal]

I had never heard of this and it looks awesome, thanks for the link.