Comment by chippiewill

C++ _has_ been getting safer and safer to write. However:

1. The dangerous footguns haven't gone away 2. There are certain safety problems that simply can't be solved in C++ unless you accept that ABI will be broken and the language won't be backwards compatible.

Circle (https://www.circle-lang.org/site/index.html) and Carbon (https://docs.carbon-lang.dev/) were both started to address this fundamental issue that C++ can't be fully fixed and made safe like Rust without at least some breaking changes.

This article goes into more depth: https://herecomesthemoon.net/2024/11/two-factions-of-cpp/

In the case of the Linux kernel, a lot of the newer features that C++ has delivered aren't _that_ useful for improving safety because kernel space has special requirements which means a lot of them can't be used. I think Greg is specifically alluding to the "Safety Profiles" feature that the C++ committee looks like it will be going with to address the big safety issues that C++ hasn't yet addressed - that's not going to land any time soon and still won't be as comprehensive as Rust.