You're a bit late to the party. Its been normalized for almost as long as distros have existed.
No, you don't just randomly have a different package installed one day, at least on major distros. The next distro release will include the new package. If for any reason you care, you can always go install the other one you want instead as well, it just won't be part of the default package repos.
Generally, the replacement packages are 1:1 with the one they are replacing, and/or compatibility shims are included during the install. Its seamless. Also, generally the package manager does tell you what it's installing.
The major Linux distros are very careful about this stuff. The two largest have huge enterprise user bases, and it's never been a problem.
Many of the Linux distros are extremely opinionated on what goes into their default package repositories - it's a major reason why you choose certain distros. You are delegating all of this concern about packages, compatibility, bug/security fixes, and licenses and whatever to the maintainers of the distro. They are very careful not to break existing systems, and aren't going to surprise you one day with a major disruptive change. For them to replace Redis, for instance, with Valkey, it's going to be on the next major os release, it'll be a drop in replacement (all Redis commands continue to work, etc), and you'll have an opportunity to see this change while installing packages. This isn't "shoot from the hip" npm style stuff...
No, you don't just randomly have a different package installed one day, at least on major distros. The next distro release will include the new package. If for any reason you care, you can always go install the other one you want instead as well, it just won't be part of the default package repos.
Generally, the replacement packages are 1:1 with the one they are replacing, and/or compatibility shims are included during the install. Its seamless. Also, generally the package manager does tell you what it's installing.
The major Linux distros are very careful about this stuff. The two largest have huge enterprise user bases, and it's never been a problem.
Many of the Linux distros are extremely opinionated on what goes into their default package repositories - it's a major reason why you choose certain distros. You are delegating all of this concern about packages, compatibility, bug/security fixes, and licenses and whatever to the maintainers of the distro. They are very careful not to break existing systems, and aren't going to surprise you one day with a major disruptive change. For them to replace Redis, for instance, with Valkey, it's going to be on the next major os release, it'll be a drop in replacement (all Redis commands continue to work, etc), and you'll have an opportunity to see this change while installing packages. This isn't "shoot from the hip" npm style stuff...