&gt; As an example: I&#x27;ve never logged into a Solaris &#x2F; Illumos machine which was current on security updates because the admins didn&#x27;t have the confidence which Debian admins have had since the 90s that updates won&#x27;t break things.<p>I want to adress this separately: UNIX and Solaris, from which SmartOS stems, practically invented the concept of backwards compatibility, the guaranteed not to break application binary interface, and paranoia about end to end data integrity. The system administrators&#x27; concerns are themselves disconcerting: imagine you need to have a brain tumor removed, and the surgeon who is to remove it is not specialized in neurosurgery? You write about sysadmins who are unfamiliar with the subject matter... and as professional system administrators, they well should be. With this in mind, would you trust them to know what they are doing?