[r6rs-discuss] meta r6rs

[Chris Hanson]

John Cowan wrote:
> Thomas Lord scripsit:
>> Yet, control over the content of R6 is wholly owned (de facto)
>> by past editors and their "heirs".   So, even though there is
>> economic rivalry over the contents of the document, the contents
>> are, at the end of the day, decided by the fiat of a small group.   
> 
> Every word of this is true, and it was true of all other Scheme standards
> as well.  Yet the overall degree of R5RS compliance is tolerably good.

No, the previous RnRS documents were much more of a community process 
than the current one.  The people who decided what went into the 
documents were self-selected by their participation in the process. 
Additionally, the consensus decision process ensured that the contents 
were well supported by the community.  So R5RS compliance says little 
about the potential for R6RS compliance.

Note that I distinguish between the "authors" of the documents, those 
whose names appeared in the title, and the "participants" who made the 
decisions.  Originally, these were the same, but towards the end there 
was significant divergence between them, as some participants were 
inadvertently omitted from the authors list while some ex-participants 
remained.