IMO the C standards are conservative enough that even a standard level "only" a decade old is still fine. With that said, we still have options even when movin

IMO the C standards are conservative enough that even a standard level "only" a decade old is still fine. With that said, we still have options even when moving to a newer standard. Many new language features can be machine-translated to C89 if needed (similar to how we have protoize / unprotoize, though not always as seamless). If we need to keep a bridge to C89 the kernel authors could hold to a subset of new language features that are amenable to machine translation.