Iirc, the last draft before final publication is free and it's just as good.
As another user replied, there is more going on in the post than what is specified, guaranteed, etc, by the standard.
The practice of C programming in an actual system using non-standard things is important. Also, the C language does have its problems, even within the standard. However, pinning to C problems of a not-so-helpful implementation, library, system, etc, is unfair and unhelpful I believe.
On the other hand, record-oriented files work just peachy with ISO standard COBOL.