Windows simply uses a decentralized approach to software discovery, based on the open web. Anybody can put their software up for download on their own website built with web standards, without having to go through any gatekeeper such as a distro manager. Multiple entities can offer software discovery services (Google, Yahoo, Bing... To say nothing of specialized services), again based on open web standards. It's a more bazaar-like system than the average Linux distro's official repository cathedral, but the huge variety of software available for Windows shows that it works pretty well.

There's no gatekeeper on linux systems. You're free to ship .deb, .rpm, .ebuild if you choose to. If you don't feel like rolling packages, a tar of the sources and a shell script that drops the right stuff in the right places will do in pretty much every case - you can even combine the two, as for example the wowza installer does. It's a tgz with the installer prepended. On the other side, if you want to get fancy, you can provide your own package repository and get dependency tracking for all your software and its OS dependencies as free addon.

So the package repositories are nothing but convenience for the end-user.

> So the package repositories are nothing but convenience for the end-user.

Isn't conveniencing the end user kind of the goal of all software? Surely there is value in tracking dependencies and conflicts (and in avoiding problems that can arise without these things) that should not reasonably be dismissed as "nothing but convenience". Perhaps I could say the same of every useful thing you've worked on.

> Isn't conveniencing the end user kind of the goal of all software?

I'm not debating that nor am I dismissing that package repositories provide tremendous value to the user. However, the parent asserts that package repositories act as a gatekeeper, thus making it harder for users to install software that is not in the package repositories. That's not true, since linux/BSD/MacOS package repositories just enhance an open system. In that context, they're mere convenience, not a requirement.

Until you have to get sstp-client, networkmanager-sstp versions that work on your particular API versions...

External dependency hell. Not in the repository, not invited.

I fail to understand your point. For any software, you can create a deb, rpm, ebuild that correctly models the dependencies and install it on the system. No package repo required. You can provide a package repo for any Linux system and install it from there, as for example the varnish people do. Both options provide full dependency resolution without a gatekeeper.

My impression was that they are trying to remedy that with the store(whatever they're calling it) in windows 8. Yes, I know it's not the same because that's only for metro apps but I guess it would be close enough.

Honestly, I haven't used windows(other than in VMs that is) since windows XP. When vista came out, I went "fuck that shit" and switched to ubuntu(then gentoo and eventually settled on Arch). Now my personal laptop is still running Arch and for work I use a macbook and an iMac(Hate the fact that you can't develop for iOS without OSX but meh, gotta be pragmatic).

TL;DR; I'm no expert but I guess they're trying to remedy that with the store thingy in Win8.

The store in Windows 8 isn't only for Metro apps, it has desktop apps too, the only difference is the store handles the discovery but doesn't handle the install of the desktop apps.

I suppose the closest is the Windows Store?