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The commit messages that added them explain the reasoning

I wish they would have put that on comments instead of on the commit messages. It's not the first time that I've seen this particular list of banned functions being shared online and every time it happens someone has to explain that the most interesting info is hidden in the commit messages.

All the string functions have buffer overrun vulnerabilities if not used carefully. I'm not sure about the time functions though.

The time functions are either non-reentrant, or, for the _r versions, have the same problem with buffer overruns.

https://github.com/git/git/commit/1fbfdf556f2abc708183caca53...

https://github.com/git/git/commit/91aef030152d121f6b4bc3b933...

Very much this. I frequently write small games in C, and the number of times I have been bitten by baffling behaviour because a string somewhere was copied into an array that was too short, are many! Apart from that, I love the simplicity of the language and the stdlib, and it's definitely my preferred hobby programming environment.

It would be good to know what the commonly-accepted alternatives are.

I'm pretty sure you could google each of these with the word 'dangerous'

For example: https://lgtm.com/rules/2154840805/