Which Java baggage do you mean?

Package/build management is one, gradle drives me crazy sometimes. Haven’t used maven so can’t speak about it.

Exactly right. It seems difficult for so many folks to understand Kotlin is not some independent language from scratch but another JVM language trying to avoid Java's supposedly shortcomings. And Kotlin/Native/Web doesn't matter because core language design is simply informed by Java and other JVM ecosystem languages' features and limitations. I think Kotlin is newer/better horse cart to Java's old cart rather than automobile.

Further as others have mentioned Java's 6 month release cycle and ton of changes at language/VM/library layers will make it difficult for Kotlin to choose between complying to latest JVM or chart an independent path.

So true. I feel sorry for my Android colleagues. There’s a reason our iOS team ships much faster and has a far lower crash rate.

This is correct but not because of Java. The android SDK is terrible because of many reasons.

Which is also the reason why kotlin is so popular there. Using extensions function and concise syntax you can build clutches around this terrible abomination of an SDK.