>> Because as an author, I will want the upstream version of libxyz
> Why would that be true in general?
Because I want to write software that works on various Unices, not just one Linux distribution. So it seems safer to rely on software that my users (the people who install the software I wrote) will be able to install from source, if necessary.
If I were to require whatever version Debian had at the moment, then I'd leave Fedora, Arch, OpenBSD, FreeBSD, Illumos aficionados in the lurch.
> Why would that be true in general?
Because I want to write software that works on various Unices, not just one Linux distribution. So it seems safer to rely on software that my users (the people who install the software I wrote) will be able to install from source, if necessary.
If I were to require whatever version Debian had at the moment, then I'd leave Fedora, Arch, OpenBSD, FreeBSD, Illumos aficionados in the lurch.