[JoshTriplett]

No, but they're representative of the decision process. "Should we do A or B" results in people popping up supporting A, B, C, D, and E, and the decision tends to be "let's support them all". And as the original article we're commenting on discusses, that "support" comes in the form of "hey package maintainers, here's what you have to deal with".

[debiandev]

This is a misunderstanding of how Debian works.

[JoshTriplett]

I've participated in the Debian community for 18 years, since Potato (2.2). I have a fairly good practical idea of how Debian operates. The above description was based on many, many, many decisions over the years. On the rare occasions that Debian has to actually decide something rather than answering "X or Y" with "yes" (and the decision doesn't fall solely to a small number of developers responsible for the packages in question), it results in painful institutional friction.

I love using Debian, I care deeply about Debian Policy and Debian's procedures, I enjoy many aspects of the Debian community, and I'm also well aware of where Debian has difficulties.