That's one of main point of a distribution, rather that simply throwing software on a hard drive.
The maintainers have to work hard to guarantee that a specific set of packages and version work well together. Well enough for most users to deploy 99% of the packages without surprises.
And then backport security updates (often faster than upstream), for 3 years, often 5.
And various companies provide longer term updates and maintenance.
Oh, and provide license checking and vetting.
Turns out that it's a lot of work and no serious distribution would consider supporting multiple version of packages while guaranteeing the same level of quality.
> Do you know more about my context than I do?
Given your statements about distributions... most likely yes.
Hello there, ad hominem.
Linux distributions are overreaching. They should offer those services for core software. I should be able to install Inkscape 0.91 and 0.92 at the same time, easily.
* compartmentalized side-effects (not per-user even -
users might decide they want multiple compartments for
different apps) and
* a shared storage area for all the packages and their
versions (i.e. Nix)
> install packages for a single user
because of the security angle, Not allowing this:
> install multiple versions of the same package
is completely indefensible.
Who are you, package manager, to decide that I shouldn't be able to use different versions of the same package? Do you know more about my context than I do?