I see Docker / your container tech of choice as a solution to this. Your server can still run whatever distro, and a specific app can run a different one.
This can be annoying from the sysadmin perspective, since there are now multiple operating systems to take care of, but at the same time, the developer may not be able to produce builds for all distros their users would like.
Ubuntu is a fine choice IMHO, given the above. But yeah, some debs / ppa would be nice.
One day libfoo announces a must-fix RCE bug, which started in 1.74 and is fixed in 2.11.
Quick, which containers have libfoo in them? What version? Do you have a complete build process for them, or did you download the container from somebody else? Is it a clean libfoo, or did somebody clone it into their own tree and has later made modifications to it?
And that's really quite "annoying" from the sysadmin perspective, which makes it annoying from the devops perspective, which should make it annoying from your whole IT infrastructure perspective.
This can be annoying from the sysadmin perspective, since there are now multiple operating systems to take care of, but at the same time, the developer may not be able to produce builds for all distros their users would like.
Ubuntu is a fine choice IMHO, given the above. But yeah, some debs / ppa would be nice.