When is it (not) appropriate to bundle dependencies with an application?

Question

Summary

I recently had a conversation with the creator of a framework that one of my applications depends on. During that conversation he mentioned as

Answer 1

If you're producing software for an end-user, the goal is to let the customer use your software. Anything that stands in the way is counter-productive. If they have to download dependencies themselves, there's a possibility that they'll decide to avoid your software instead. You can't control whether libraries will be backwards compatible, and you don't want your software to stop working because the user updated their system. Similarly, you don't want a customer to install an old version of your software with old libraries and have the rest of the system break.

This means bundling is generally the way to go. If you can ensure that your software will install smoothly without bundling dependencies, and that's less work, then that may be a better option. It's about what satisfies your customers.