[joe_the_user]

Individuals, who, let's not forget that, are the reason the projects exist in the first place, and who may feel more attachment to the projects than others.

Absolutely, it's quite a quandary. The thing is, there's a difference between "random tool ten people use and no one would create with person X" and, say, Open Office and there are a variety of shades in between. At some point, the "I created this and I can manipulate it any way I want" thing is really problematic and stands in the way of a semi-important standard/application/library but at other points, there is no easy alternative.

[luckylion]

I don't know. Generally, "it worked out great the past two decades" is, to me, a good indicator that it's going to work out in the future, too. It might not be nice and you might not want to stand in the line of fire, but it's going to be consistent, and if you like what you saw until now, consistency is what you want. Who knows where Linux will go without Linus. Maybe Google will push DRM into the kernel and in five years you can't run adblock any more on a modern Kernel (yes, I'm being hyperbolic).

What I do like about the "there's no place for niceness here" is one thing over all: if you can make it there, you can take the heat. And if you're in a position of responsibility, that's really something that is extremely important. It sorts out the people that can't stand the heat, and that's ugly and hard on those people, but it's good for the project, because you can't have them only experience the heat for the first time when they are in power and Amazon leans on them with their billion dollar law team and the promise of a cushy office job.

I understand the idea of "this madness and chaos got us this far, but we'll have to grow up and start doing it the way the people do it that we didn't like when we started it, it's just too big and too important". It's very similar to what happened in the crypto scene when a bunch of guys did some cool stuff and then they realize that their little project now is worth more than many countries' GDP, that's probably a sobering talk.

I don't know that it's necessarily a good idea, though. So far, benevolent dictators have worked out great, even if some of them ruled with a sharp tongue and an iron fist. Whether the alternative will work as well remains to be seen.