The same is true of the other walled gardens.

I fail to see how the package management in a Linux distribution could be considered a walled garden. Commonly it's cited as the exact opposite of that (see the table here: [1]). What type of freedom are you missing in something like Debian, where you can edit and recompile the core components of your system at a whim, the system even supporting you through source packages, and where anything outside the package management is just a "git clone" and a compilation away? I really don't know what more anyone could ask for. Certainly we don't want to go back to the 90s way of downloading unsigned .exe files from some random guy's web site and then going hunting for matching DLLs?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closed_platform

The freedom to not have to jump through ridiculous hoops like compiling from source just to use an application the distro didn't deem worthy of inclusion in their repo.

> to use an application the distro didn't deem worthy of inclusion in their repo.

How did you come to this conclusion? Did you request the package be included in the distro you use? If so, and it wasn't provided, provide the bug report/feature request link ...

My point is I shouldn't have to beg some third party to include it. The developer made it, I want to run it, there's no need for anyone else to be involved in this process.

So .exe files it is? You can do that on Linux as well, by the way, it's just a horribly insecure way to distribute software.

I keep hearing that, and it is of course possible, but the point is that hardly anyone does it. That's what makes it meaningless that it can be done.

And it isn't insecure. If I trust the developer and get the software from them, it's just as good as trusting a repo maintained by random internets who have been known to not only not keep software in the repo up to date, but actually introduce vulnerabilities that weren't there before!