> Rust was helped by being a Mozilla language, and some of the personalities it had around it.
Indeed. But my point is there was already widespread movement behind building a programming language. So if Mozilla hadn’t taken charge then I’m certain someone will.
My point is that Rust was born from a wider desire for change rather than that desire existing because of Rust. Thus that desire would have been met in one form or another regardless of the invention of Rust.
The big plus of the language was proving that Cyclone ideas to improve C, from AT&T research project were sound and could be made mainstream.
And now other languages are building on it as well, that is why Swift, Chapel, Haskell, OCaml, D are also having a go at a mix of linear types, affine types and effects.
However many folks credit Rust for type system features that are actually available in any ML derived language, or Ada/SPARK, so it isn't as if knowledge is that well spread.