I’m with you there. Good stuff. (Also I 
Kris’s pragmatism in curating popular tools!)
Regarding Python, I wonder if you could help me understand resistance to user-scoped venv dependencies, short of hacking the default filesystem? [NAS-130029]
More broadly (and with the exception of kernel modules), I believe these requests for userland packages are a direct consequence of unclear messaging about the system environment.
It seems to me that nearly all of this¹ could be neatly handled by the company explaining (docs), facilitating (UX), and encouraging a move to our own container-based shell environments.
There could easily be more proactive guidance (hey, try this!) and less reactive admonition (no, don’t touch that!) Modeling a tightly curated “appliance OS” in more actions and fewer words.
As you note: supply chain exposure increases the stakes. Most of us don’t need or even want to kick the castle if we aren’t lured to it; just politely show us to our own sandboxes and we’ll do our thing there, our own way.
TrueNAS has come this far being presented [at times unintentionally] as a Unix or Linux distro. If the goal is to pivot to HCI, shouldn’t we be in our own shells already?
I hope I’m saying that right. Thanks.
¹ Public feature requests and questions about apt must be just the tip of the iceberg…