[kragen]

the main stakeholders are c programmers and the users of their programs, not c compiler vendors. the stake held by c compiler vendors is quite small by comparison. however, the c standards committee consists entirely of c compiler vendors, as you implicitly acknowledge by referring to 'their compilers' and 'their customers'. this largely happens through the same process through which drug regulations are written by drug companies and energy regulations are written by oil companies: the c compiler vendors have much deeper knowledge of the subject matter; the standard is put into practice by what the c compiler vendors choose to do; and, although the c compiler vendors' interests in the c standard are vastly less significant than those of c programmers and users of c programs, they are also vastly more concentrated

consequently, the consensus process systematically and reproducibly fails to reflect stakeholder interests