Yes it does.<p>For application developers there is a consistent set of APIs that are expected to exist in each version of Windows, Mac OS X, Android, iOS, Windows Phone...<p>On GNU&#x2F;Linux one needs to bundle the libraries with the application, preferably static linked. But no one is going to do with with GNOME or KDE applications, for example.<p>Then there are the deviations each GNU&#x2F;Linux distribution does from UNIX daemon management and paths.<p>So application developers are forced to choose a set of gold distributions and let everyone else to figure out how the application might, compile and run on their own system.