this post was submitted on 12 Aug 2023
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Whether R7RS-large will ever be completed is now a big question. Here's my quick and dirty summary of recent events.
Until last fall, the R7RS Working Group 2 was regularly voting on libraries and features to add to the standard. (See this page for the results.) There were complaints about this approach, and, last fall, there was a major shake-up. A new effort was started by Daphne Preston-Kendall and Marc Nieper-Wißkirchen to split R7RS-large into two languages, Foundations and Batteries. Both are supposed to be compatible with R6RS, which was not originally a goal for R7RS-small or -large. The goal, in part, is to "heal the split" between R6RS and R[57]RS in the Scheme community. Marc, Daphne, and others are working hard on these languages, but there's no sign of the split healing. Some implementers remain complete opposed to a Scheme based on R6.
This past week, John Cowan resigned as chair of Working Group 2, saying
At this point, the Scheme Steering Committee, the group that organized the R7RS project, must do something to keep R7RS-large afloat. No-one's heard much from the SC in years, however; according to John, they haven't spoken as a body since 2013. Thus it's currently unclear whether there will be a new chair or any further work on R7RS-large.
Regardless, work on the Foundations and Batteries languages continues. Whether this will lead to an officially-blessed Report is anyone's guess. The old R7RS-large voting schedule has vanished with John's resignation, though, so it's the only game in town for now.
I hope this is some help. Daphne has just written her summary of the situation here.