“The package installation problem is one of the primary barriers
to desktop Linux adoption. Most if not all solutions so far have
addressed the wrong problem (at least for desktop users)–resolving
dependencies at package installation time. A much better approach
is to ensure that as few dependencies exist as possible. While this
might seem a lofty goal, given the open source development emphasis
on reusing as much code as possible, I believe this goal is indeed
achievable through a process of desktop component
standardization.“The dependency problem is well analyzed and well understood
(for instance see Mike Hearn’s writeup). Therefore, I will restrict
myself to a quick overview…”