How far are we from having the will and ability for it to be common to use safer languages than C/C++/Java/etc.?

A long time ago, it didn't seem pragmatic to write in, say, ocaml, because no one was going to feel like building or even installing the compiler in order to try your dumb software, but now that everything is about packages from distributions...

Today it feels strange to apply security updates for necessary software where the announcements list "Multiple memory safety errors, integer overflows, use-after-frees..."