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I'm not saying we need to rewrite SQLite and I'm not sure why everyone is assuming I suggested rust.

But people need to consider how much testing SQLite did and still hit memory vulnerabilities when they consider picking up C for a new project.

In the long term, I hope C stops being the default language that hardware vendors provide for their hardware.

Me too, but I also hope Rust is not that default language.

Just how many machines are we talking about? Does anyone have estimates?

Probably every Airbus A350 XWB and a lot of GM, Nissan, and Suzuki cars. Maybe also a few or a lot of General Electric products. [1]

The Library of Congress also recommends it for preservation of digital content, which would be harder if Rust compilers were lost. If all C89 compilers were lost, it would be much more simple to create a new one to compile SQLite than it would be to recreate a Rust compiler.

[1]: https://www.sqlite.org/famous.html