What will happen to C++ when Bjarne Stroustrup retires?

[orangepeel367]

Hi guys,
Because C++ is not owned by anyone (unlike Java, C#, etc) what will happen to C++ when Bjarne Stroustrup retires? Will some one else take work on the language or will the language just stagnate?
Thanks :-)

[z05DSL3A]

https://isocpp.org/std

[48T7M4Gy]

One of his children is currently being trained in a jungle retreat to take over.

[Cubbi]

When C++ committee members retire from their day jobs, they usually find a lot more time for their favorite volunteer activity, which is improving and extending C++. But even then, Bjarne is still going to be just one vote in over a hundred: all three of his C++17 proposals (UFCS, operator dot, and automatic comparisons) were voted down.

(also, technically speaking, C++ is owned by the United Nations. through ISO)

[E0p9LyTq]

Bjarne Stroustrup may have created the initial idea for C++, but now the development of the language is decided by committee. The C++ ISO Committee.

He is just one voice in over 100.

C++ will continue to evolve and improve as long as there are programmers using it and the ISO committee decided to keep tweaking the language.

C is still used by quite a number of programmers despite the age of the language.

[48T7M4Gy]

(also, technically speaking, C++ is owned by the United Nations. through ISO)

The ISO is a separate organization that, among many others, liaises as it sees fit and where appropriate with the UN but is not part of the UN.

The ISO owns the copyright to its standards one of which is the C++ ISO Standard but it does not own C++.

Generally where a member country issues its own Standard that countries Standards Organization publishes their own version under their own copyright to suit that countries requirements.

http://www.iso.org/iso/home/about.htm

[Cubbi]

okay s/technically/for all practical purposes/

Member standards seem to be a useless formality, to be honest: ANSI (INCITS) has just (in 2016!) re-published ISO C++ from 2014 to make it an official US national standard, but who uses it instead of the international version?

[z05DSL3A]

Stroustrup wrote:

Do you own C++?
No. If anyone "owns C++," it must be the ISO. AT&T gave the rights to the C++ manual that I wrote to the ISO. The ISO C++ Standard is copyrighted by ISO.
Compiler vendors do not pay royalties to me or to AT&T for C++, and ISO standards are specifications intended for royalty-free use by everyone (once they have paid the ISO or a national standard committee for their copy of the standard). The individual compilers are owned by their respective vendors/suppliers.

"But someone from SCO claimed that they own C++"; is that not so? It's complete rubbish. I saw that interview. The SCO guy clearly had no clue what C++ was, referring to it as "the C++ languages". At most, SCO may own a 15-year old and seriously outdated version of Cfront - my original C++ compiler. I was careful not to patent or trademark anything to do with C++. That's one reason we write plain "C++" and not "C++(tm)". The C++ standard is unencumbered of patents - the committee carefully checked that also.

http://www.stroustrup.com/bs_faq.html#revenues

[freddie1]

The main reason I use C++ is that it will continue on after Bjarne Stroustrup for all of the reasons mentioned above, just as C has continued on after the death of Dennis Ritchie. There are other niche languages out there that in my opinion are much better than C++ (for the kind of work I do, which is Windows Desktop Applications), but none of them have the kind of surviveability that C++ has.