Python cryptography, Rust, and Gentoo

> You mean a README file with a list of dependencies? I'm sure people on a certain distribution know how to use their package manager.

Sure. One problem is, that package list changes with each distribution and sometimes within versions of each distribution. So we only have instructions for Fedora and Ubuntu, and those instructions are wrong for some versions of those distros.

Anyway, every single step makes the software harder to build.

> Users of stable distributions are familiar with the issue.

So? The issues still exist.

> That is incentive to:
> 1. Do not depend on amateur libraries that change API

Distro policies are responsible for varying file layouts and naming conventions. Distros also make varying decisions about library versions and which features they enable at build time.

> 2. Use autotools and let it figure out all this stuff

Autotools are a nightmare and writing autotools feature tests for everything I care about would be a ton of extra work.

> you won't be using the same binary on linux and windows.

Indeed, but once you've done the work to build Windows binary you can reuse that work to build a Linux binary with vendored libraries.

People arguing that the Right Way to build C/C++ software is to make it Linux only, use distro libraries, do a ton of extra work, and downgrade the performance and functionality of that software to fit the shipped libraries, are not doing C/C++ any favours.