Unlike other Unix, Linux doesn't control its userland. net-tools (ifconfig, netstat, arp, route, etc.) was maintained by a separate person, was mostly a dead pr

Unlike other Unix, Linux doesn't control its userland. net-tools (ifconfig, netstat, arp, route, etc.) was maintained by a separate person, was mostly a dead project (it has been revived very recently) and many scripts heavily relied on their interface (both input and output). To be able to push new features, kernel devs had to develop a set of tools to expose those features to users in a coherent way. So, yes, maybe they know better.