| We have had four models: Committee consensus took us up through R5RS. There were about 30 members of the committee, though obviously some were more active than others. The problem with that was that we got no change except at the margins. Implementations were extended in random incompatible ways. Then we had consensus of a small committee (5 members, later 4) for R6RS, followed by a community ratification vote. A lot of people thought the resulting standard was over-engineered, and I am quite sure that many people didn't understand all of it (I didn't for sure, especially macros and records.) Some implementers adopted it, others declared they never would. For R7RS-small and the early stages of R7RS-large, we had the open SRFI process (anyone can propose, the community helps refine, the author decides when to freeze the result). Now we have a (de facto) Sitzfleisch process: however stays in their seat and is still arguing the longest, wins. I eventually ran out of energy for this one. Note that in all cases the text controls the meaning, not the author(s), and when the standard and an implementation collide, it is the implementation that is wrong. This is very nearly a sacred principle, as in C/C++ and various other multiple-implementation languages. |