Rant / gonna be honest here, tying software versions to the OS in LTS releases is the dumbest idea ever. Just because I want a stable OS doesn’t mean I want to be stuck with outdated apps for years. It's not the 70s anymore, having duplicate dependencies isn't gonna make my computer die.
Their solution? Flatpak! Downloading gigs of useless bullshit to run a 30mb app. Make it make sense! /
If they’re gonna go ahead and call a release LTS, shouldn’t they actually support it? It’s a stable API target. Just keep building new versions against that target and releasing them.
That would simply push the burden to software devs, as they'd need to make sure their app still works using several years old dependencies. The solution is the separation of The OS space and user installed software. Microsoft solution of letting each app bring it's own dependencies, while only providing some basic shared libraries was IMHO the best solution. The disk space wasn't a problem anymore so a few gigs of duplicate files across hundred of apps isn't the end of the world.
Alpine Linux allows choosing a repository manually for each package, so it's possible to have an LTS release but install some packages from the edge repository. https://wiki.alpinelinux.org/wiki/Repositories#Repository_pinning
The problem isn't that it's possible in some distros with some tinkering, albeit that warning would scare the shit of someone that is used to computers, but not a Linux expert yet (ex : me), let alone your average normie user that can't do anything more complex than change their wallpaper. The problem lies in the existence of such a system in itself in the modern day single-user centred computing. I simply can't fathom a reason for it to be this way other than a holdover from the past, back when Linux was only for companies and servers.
