> For one thing, package managers are only useful on packages supplied by the distro (or otherwise bundled using that convention), and we need something that allows for installing (and uninstalling, and backing up configurations for, and...) software safely and systematically in the general case.
There's nothing that limits rpm/deb to distribution. Anyone who publishes a tarball with software, can publish rpm/deb as well. Many do.
> For another thing, even packages installed with a distro's own package manager can typically dump whatever files they want wherever they want, rather than having the OS restrict them to a controlled environment.
The list of files in manifest is checked beforehand and if there's a conflict with existing package, the installation is aborted.
There's nothing that limits rpm/deb to distribution. Anyone who publishes a tarball with software, can publish rpm/deb as well. Many do.
> For another thing, even packages installed with a distro's own package manager can typically dump whatever files they want wherever they want, rather than having the OS restrict them to a controlled environment.
The list of files in manifest is checked beforehand and if there's a conflict with existing package, the installation is aborted.