Rationale (September, 2013):

CWG affirmed that there is no required relationship between the type of the template and the type of a partial or explicit specialization of that template.

It is not clear whether there is any necessary relationship between the type specified in a primary variable template declaration and the type in an explicit or partial specialization. For example:

  template<typename T> T var = T();
  template<> char var<char> = 'a';           // #1.
  template<typename T> T* var<T> = new T();  // #2.
  template<> float var<int> = 1.5;           // #3.