Trouble at Linux Mint — and beyond

> One solution might be to move a bit towards to BSD-like model with OS core maintained by the distribution and relying more or less on the upstream to keep the software secure. I don't know if this would be actually a good solution - it would move the responsibility from the distribution maintainers to users and upstream.

I am obviously biased here, as I work at a project which "[tries] to get users to install their software directly", but linking to the upstream's download infrastructure and spending the effort which did go to maintaining packages on evaluating upstream's security might be a solution.