Zig does seem like a closer match to C and so could have been better suited than Rust. It doesn't provide the same safety as Rust, so it's not as big of a payo

Zig does seem like a closer match to C and so could have been better suited than Rust. It doesn't provide the same safety as Rust, so it's not as big of a payoff, though. Also, it's still fairly new relative to rust. The kernel project distributes several userspace utilities and new ones of those might be worth writing in Zig.