I see the small community in illumos as a benefit, more or less. I'm not trying to denigrate it for its size. The issue is the attrition, the apparently-negative momentum, and the loss of prominent proponents and distributors, including Brendan, OmniTI, etc. That's bad when something is already small. It makes people wonder why others are fleeing.
My concern, as it relates to this thread, is around the spectacular loss of faith that Brendan has exhibited. You don't go from being a world-recognized authority on DTrace like Brendan to a Linux refugee overnight, especially not 3 years ago when you have to lay out all the plumbing for eBPF yourself.
So something happened. That's clear. I want to know what it is, at least proximally / vaguely, because if it can drive Brendan away from illumos, I assume it can also drive away those of us who are less involved.
If it was simply a personal dispute and had nothing to do with technical direction, that, of course, is one thing that doesn't reflect badly on illumos at all. People burn out sometimes, they want a change of scenery, whatever. But Brendan appears to stringently believe that illumos is now a bad choice in virtually all circumstances. It feels like there's something substantial at play. I don't think he's petty enough to bash the illumos kernel just because he had a spat or wanted to mix things up, especially considering it contains a not-insignificant portion of his own work.
I don't necessarily expect either of you to reveal details, and obviously, I respect that you have both moral and legal obligations as it relates to confidentiality surrounding personnel matters. I'm just talking about my read on the situation, and why I'm skittish, despite what I feel are some strong positives in SmartOS's favor. A world where Bryan Cantrill is the lone SmartOS holdout, after his compatriots have declared it a lost cause, is just nerve-wracking. I'm sure you can understand an outsider's perspective on that.
It'd be cool if you could discuss some of the performance ground that illumos has covered since 2014, as Brendan gave a pretty thorough list of ground that Linux has covered. His tone always seems to be "Solaris is a sad situation, but look guys, there's light at the end of the tunnel." He gives absolutely no intimation that illumos is a viable alternative, though he will entertain FreeBSD. Always phrases it like everyone knows Solaris and its derivatives are fully dead, and he alternates between appearing relieved about it and appearing disappointed about it (I'm sure it's both).
I just want to know why he rules it out so strictly. It's weird, it doesn't add up. Missing variables. I don't think this attitude is sufficiently justified by "Linux caught up, that's all". When stuff is weird, I approach it cautiously, especially since my goal with SmartOS is something simple, stable, and powerful, no fuss. Weird things are fuss.