Chrissy LeMaire explains the Linux packaging model and the long-term vision for Powershell:
So Joey comes up and says “Chrissy, Aaron Nelson has pretty much required me to talk to you. The SQL Community has the #1 PowerShell UserVoice request. We see that – we’ve heard you, The People want Out-DataTable and we agree. Would you be happy if we added it to the PowerShell Gallery first?”
“Uh, no! I want Out-DataTable to be a first class citizen like Out-GridView.”
“But where we’re going with PowerShell — we’re going smaller – to just core files, then you add on from the Gallery as desired.”
“Oh dang, like Linux! I’m liking it, keep talking.”
“To be clear, this is post 6.0. In the 6.0 timeframe, but we want to decouple as many release trains as possible, like PowerShellGet and PSReadline. But we’ll still very well package the ‘uber-complete, awesome devops tool edition’ of PowerShell. In the meantime, you could setup a metapackage for just your database stuff.”
“So it is like Linux patterns! PowerShell Gallery does that? I’m sold.”
Chrissy goes on to explain what a Powershell Gallery metapackage module is, how to create one, and even how to publish one yourself.