[gpderetta]

Actually recently the C++ standardisation has become significantly more open. Anyone can submit papers and attend meetings (attendance has skyrocketed in the last few years), only full members and national bodies can participate on formal votes, but every body participates in informal votes.

The biggest issue is that the language is first defined by a standard and there are multiple implementations, which makes it much harder to iterate, and, as it is hard to get any moderately complex proposal through, often you can see the lack of an overall unified design.

I do believe that c++ lacks a strong benevolent dictator figure. Stroustup abdicated his position probably too early.