I believe what Eric #Raymond said [1] about moving away from #C, #C++ makes lots of sense.
Personally, I witnessed many free/#open-source (#FOSS) C, C++ projects abandoned after core maintainers left, because debugging and maintaining them were too difficult with little to no documentation. Instead, volunteers started those projects from scratch with a more modern language (e.g., GO). They also got more attraction from the community as well.
[1] http://www.itprotoday.com/open-source/eric-s-raymond-keeping-bazaar-secure-and-functional