Right, but there are as many setups as there are potential users, so even if Debian works, that doesn't mean other linux flavours will work as easily, or flavours of BSDs, and then also Macs, and even WSL, or even just plain old Windows.

Having an "everyone gets the same thing, so no one wastes time on bootstrapping" solution is a perfect use-case for Docker. And then once the bugs have been found and fixed, and the code is production-ready, you can focus on documenting and scripting the setup procedures for the various operating systems.

Except of course in this case that's not what you'd be doing. You'd be installing Docker to help beta-test a program, not "just build a program". If you want to help an open source project succeed, having to install Docker is kind of a trivial cost. If you want to use this... probably not a good idea, it's extremely not ready for general use =)

Or Nix :)