That random file you downloaded off the internet was built under a specific set of assumptions - assumptions that only hold true if you are running the specific OS version they were targeting.

IF you download the .deb file for your specific OS, and IF you manually install all missing dependencies, then it works. Otherwise, you are still screwed.

At least you can extract it (IIRC, it's just a zip file anyway). But that's no different from going to sourceforge or github or whatever and getting the source tarball... and we are back where we started.

By the way, I was not complaining about "vendor lock-in". I was complaining about Debian's package management policies and how they can affect your software development process in practice - to make the case that apt is a crap replacement for a proper language/library/development/whatever oriented package management.