I think I would rather replace it with a spec for derivation files implementable in any language that existing build systems can hook into
and use as outputs.
make derivation
python -m build derivation
Trying to package software with dependencies that don't exist in nixpkgs is painful despite the tooling existing to build and install them.
That's an interesting idea. The downside (I could imagine) would be we have to convince people to implement THE RIGHT MODEL in every build tools in the world, but if that's possible then indeed it would work a lot better.
