Hi Phil,

Hopefully this will clear things up a little for you.

What the government of one particular country wants, is not the same
thing as the rules it requires. And even if it introduces specific new
requirements for software used by that government, those do not normally
affect software for other purposes - and certainly not all the software
development that is done in all the other countries of the world. While
the USA is obviously a big player in the software world (for many
reasons), it is far from being /everything/ - the C++ standards are
/international/ standards and are not controlled by any one country.

If you have ideas for additions or changes to the C++ standards that
could make it harder for developers to make mistakes with memory
management, then you can write a proposal for such changes for the
proposal mailing list. (It's fine to have discussions early in the
process - you don't have to start by writing a full formal proposal
document.) A proposal covers changes to the C++ language or standard
library. External tools - regardless of price or licensing - are not
relevant to C++ standards discussions. But if you have an idea for,
say, a new type of smart pointer that combines the advantages of shared
pointers and garbage collection with deterministic destructors and
efficient usage, then that might well be a candidate for adding to the
C++ standard. Finding ways to improve various aspects of memory and
resource access safety is definitely a hot topic in C++ language and
library development, and real contributions would be appreciated.

This particular mailing list, however, is for discussions about the C++
standard as it is today. It is for discussions about flaws or unclear
wording, or for difficult questions (the kind that can't be answered
with a google search or a stack overflow post).

There are no lists at "isocpp.org" - or any other ISO group or site -
where it is appropriate to post adverts and spam. That includes adverts
in email signatures.

David





On 25/02/2026 15:50, Phil Bouchard via Std-Discussion wrote:
>
> On 2/25/26 00:35, Jason McKesson via Std-Discussion wrote:
>> On Tue, Feb 24, 2026 at 8:33 PM Phil Bouchard via Std-Discussion
>> <std-discussion_at_[hidden]> wrote:
>>> I apologize but people forget the US government disallows memory unsafe programming languages:
>>>
>>> https://media.defense.gov/2025/Jun/23/2003742198/-1/-1/0/CSI_MEMORY_SAFE_LANGUAGES_REDUCING_VULNERABILITIES_IN_MODERN_SOFTWARE_DEVELOPMENT.PDF
>>>
>>> Given the importance of the problem I was hoping for a constructive discussion as it is free anyways for OSS projects.
>> The validity of your description of that paper aside (nothing in that
>> paper seems to "disallow" anything; it's just a look at the current
>> state of affairs), that doesn't justify your post. This ML is for
>> discussing the C++ standard as it exists. If you want to propose
>> changing it, there's a different ML for that.
>
> https://www.theregister.com/2024/11/08/the_us_government_wants_developers/
>
>
> Thanks,
>