Definitely cause for concern

I'm quite anxious by what seems to be a somewhat head-in-the-sand approach to security in PHP by the core developers.

It seems obvious to me that if there are potential major security concerns with running PHP, CTOs may opt for other solutions instead. With each company that goes down this path, the demand for PHP developers decreases, and so does our potential to earn a living.

Currently, I don't know if many alternatives to PHP exist, but that does not mean that alternatives will not appear in time, particularly if it looks as though the field is ripe for competition.

As a passionate PHP developer, I'd really rather stick with PHP, and so I'd love to hear that, like businesses, the core devs took security as seriously as they do performance.

I doubt that a significant number of developers or companies stop using PHP because of this.

Too make you feel better, it is not as if other languages do not have similar issues dealing with security. It is a more of a problem of the human nature. Wherever there are humans, there are security problems and people dealing with the badly.