But with the Linux ecosystem's inertia being what it is, rather than the 2 existing implementations of ifconfig in use being displaced by this better one... now there are just 3 implementations of ifconfig in use.
As mentioned in the Stack Exchange thread linked in that post, a different someone submitted a relevant patch to one of those existing implementations – way back in 2013. But it was never accepted. More inertia.
To be fair, the third 'ifconfig' implementation is not compatible with the original in command-line options or in output, so adopting it would require changes just as adopting 'ip' does.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22628938
But with the Linux ecosystem's inertia being what it is, rather than the 2 existing implementations of ifconfig in use being displaced by this better one... now there are just 3 implementations of ifconfig in use.
As mentioned in the Stack Exchange thread linked in that post, a different someone submitted a relevant patch to one of those existing implementations – way back in 2013. But it was never accepted. More inertia.