OTOH, I have zero interest in contributing to a C kernel. Even the experts can't write it without messing up with C's vastly many footguns. I'm not a C expert. What chance to I have to add a new kernel feature that doesn't literally destroy my system? It's too intimidating in the sheer amount of risky "surface area" I have to perfectly manage or else face dire consequences.

Nah. I'd much rather use a newer language that's explicitly designed for writing the same sorts of things that C is but with a teensy portion of the footguns.

I'm not saying C is bad. I am saying that if the Linux kernel devs still write buggy code sometimes — not because of logic errors or other design-level mistakes, but because of some goofy memory issue or accidentally wandering off into the wilderness of UB — then I guarantee I'm going to screw it up.

If it were in Rust or Zig or whatever, I'd feel like I had at least a fighting chance of making a tweak that didn't immediately format my hard drive and kick my cat.

Yeah and the rest of us don't want a kernel that mutates a heap-like structure for every minor operation. So until there's a language for writing software with a C-like approach to memory and lifetimes you're not going to see C or C software replaced.

Redox exists; are you contributing to it?