Earlier quoted context omitted.
"There’s a big difference between mostly dead and all dead. ... Now, mostly dead is slightly alive. Now, all dead…well, with all dead, there’s usually only one thing that you can do." I personally believe that illumos will survive for decades, and it very well could rise again for those users that want/need robust stability. One particularly notable design win was Oxide Computer Company as their hypervisor. They publ…
Also Oxide just raised a $100 million series B with their illumos based product [1]. While I respect Brendan I think the arguments he makes are kinda weak. For example take OpenZFS. OpenZFS on Linux or FreeBSD isn't that great; OpenZFS on Linux is only an option if you want to support the compatibility. As long as OpenZFS can't have (parts) inside the main Linux kernel source tree there is going to be breakage on upd…
This is really good for them, and I do hope they do succeed, but if it's a matter of an individual developer deciding on their optimal area of systems expertise, this is still putting too many eggs in a single basket.
The reality is that even Oxide.Computer clients would still be running Linux on their machines.
So, as an engineer, you're literally shooting yourself in the foot by NOT moving to Linux, when everyone else has.
I think it's a standard sunk cost fallacy here. Some of us continue using BSD, but others switch to Linux and go work at Google, Meta, Amazon and even Oracle and Netflix, at 2x to 4x+ the income we get as BSD and Solaris devs.