For GNU libc, I would agree. But, not all libc implementations are equal. OpenBSD has spent a lot of time sanitizing their libc implementation, and they have e

For GNU libc, I would agree. But, not all libc implementations are equal. OpenBSD has spent a lot of time sanitizing their libc implementation, and they have even split their static C runtime library to further reduce its footprint. Developers are only really penalized for what they use. read, write, socket, bind, close, open, mmap, etc., really aren't that complex. Already, that's a significant portion of the libc footprint that any other language would use. I personally see little reason why libc couldn't be further minimized into a libunix that just contained the syscall interface. It doesn't make much of a difference really, but perhaps it would shift the largely misplaced unease that many developers have regarding anything involving C.