How is software compiled and ported over to Ubuntu?

I recently installed Ubuntu-Mate on an old Acer laptop. It runs greats and apps like VLC (as an example) run great. There are fewer crashes and buggy behaviour. On VoidLinux/musl I have to constantly use killall -9 vlc to force it to shut it down. On Ubuntu-Mate and Linux Mint, it's more stable. In other non-Ubuntu OSes, I had to configure the X.org driver for Radeon graphics to eliminate all of the screen tearing during video playback. However, Ubuntu-Mate takes care of (most of) the tearing. (Although, Linux Mint does not automatically take care of the screen tearing during video playback.) So the question is: Are applications heavily modified and patched to work with the more common Ubuntu-based OSes? Is it because Ubuntu devs are willing to use proprietary or closed-source drivers? Or is it because the software is just compiled differently (e.g. different linked libraries and compilation options)? (Disclaimer: I'm not a programmer, but I've installed different OSes over the uses for my own personal use and curiosity.)