I don't think that all the k8s distros are looking at cri-o, I think that many are considering cri-containerd instead, which kind of makes sense as they're all

I don't think that all the k8s distros are looking at cri-o, I think that many are considering cri-containerd instead, which kind of makes sense as they're all using containerd, so whether you need a whole separate program to manage that interface is debatable.