Almost every other principle in the charter can be used to shoot down changes for safety, so I'm afraid the safety part is only wishful thinking, hoping for a S

Almost every other principle in the charter can be used to shoot down changes for safety, so I'm afraid the safety part is only wishful thinking, hoping for a Sufficiently Smart Compiler/Analyzer to save them. The charter also calls for codifying known solutions, and not new inventions. But the known solutions for memory safety require things like more advanced type systems, that aren't in "the character of the language", and aren't "small and simple". Safety could be improved by severely restricting pointers, in conflict with the "programming freedom" principle, and of course performance overheads or backwards-incompatible changes are unacceptable. So the charter says that C should have a cake and eat it.