Imagine in general the bikeshed problem, or more recently the "midnight evaluates to false" saga on the python mailing list, then add in the fact that every person on the committee is an expert (in fact, the world's best expert) on the entire list of issues being discussed.
The C++ working group is one of the most open ones, though. All proposal papers, meeting minutes, even the draft standard documents are freely available at http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/, as are the archives of the various mailing lists.
(BTW, if anyone upvotes this, I'm going to lose my 1337 karma. Oh well.)
The ANSI/ISO way is the best way to standardize technology. The alternative being a reference implementation subject to a benevolent dictator with everyone discussing what the right license should be.
Any implementor knows what is supposed to be compliant with, as long as, its implementation follows a well defined standard, regardless of what license it decides to publish under and what type of implementation (compiler/interpreter/JIT/,...)
> The ANSI/ISO way is the best way to standardize technology. The alternative being a reference implementation subject to a benevolent dictator with everyone discussing what the right license should be.
That's a false dilemma. You can have a standard that's discussed and decided on in a forum that's not ANSI/ISO.
That's just nitpicking. Maybe the GP could have said "The model of the ANSI/ISO way is the best way to standardize technology.", but the sentence after that described in a very apt way the vast majority of "standards" not build by a formal committee, with actual travel budgets and a commitment to make things work for the medium term (10 years, at a minimum).