> Democracy is pretty decent, but comes with some big flaws
I'd argue you are overstretching one example of one broken system to a whole class of systems. We can reframe these big egos as people who do not believe in democracy, but great believers in feudalism. (Though I do not know all the details what is going on in Debian, may be I misunderstand the affair, and I don't want to mark some specific people as anti-democrats, but I don't know how to aviod it, sorry).
We see how individual developers say "get off my lawn". The social dynamics of a collective decision making doesn't mean for them a thing. Any democracy needs a legitimate way to reach consensus. And everyone needs to conform to a consensus. Legitimacy of procedures must be enough for everyone to believe in the consensus or at least to believe in their obligation to conform. And the more power someone have, the more his obligations to conform are.
I mean, if I'm a regular voter without any special powers to resist consensus, then I cannot brake the consensus, I cannot stop system from working without resorting to really destructive and antisocial behavior. But if I was a president, I would have power, I could resist. But if I did then it would be not a democracy but an autocracy. If I was something in between a voter and a president, then the situation would be something in between, though probably the president may interfere with my plans, use their powers to stop me ruining the system.
In Debian it seems every developer maintaining something important enough have powers to resist any consensus reached. And moreover there are some who actually use their power to resist. And the system as a whole doesn't treat such behavior as them undermining the system and may be undermining the very idea of democracy. I'd say that Debian is playing democracy but didn't invested enough into building a mythology of a democracy, into making people believe in a divine right of democratic procedures to rule them all.
Though from other hand, it may be not a bug, but a feature of a system, because it pays to people by handling them some power, I believe it helps them to not burn out too fast. It charges the community with struggles and a constant fight, it provokes people-centered procedures, not rule-centered.
I'd argue you are overstretching one example of one broken system to a whole class of systems. We can reframe these big egos as people who do not believe in democracy, but great believers in feudalism. (Though I do not know all the details what is going on in Debian, may be I misunderstand the affair, and I don't want to mark some specific people as anti-democrats, but I don't know how to aviod it, sorry).
We see how individual developers say "get off my lawn". The social dynamics of a collective decision making doesn't mean for them a thing. Any democracy needs a legitimate way to reach consensus. And everyone needs to conform to a consensus. Legitimacy of procedures must be enough for everyone to believe in the consensus or at least to believe in their obligation to conform. And the more power someone have, the more his obligations to conform are.
I mean, if I'm a regular voter without any special powers to resist consensus, then I cannot brake the consensus, I cannot stop system from working without resorting to really destructive and antisocial behavior. But if I was a president, I would have power, I could resist. But if I did then it would be not a democracy but an autocracy. If I was something in between a voter and a president, then the situation would be something in between, though probably the president may interfere with my plans, use their powers to stop me ruining the system.
In Debian it seems every developer maintaining something important enough have powers to resist any consensus reached. And moreover there are some who actually use their power to resist. And the system as a whole doesn't treat such behavior as them undermining the system and may be undermining the very idea of democracy. I'd say that Debian is playing democracy but didn't invested enough into building a mythology of a democracy, into making people believe in a divine right of democratic procedures to rule them all.
Though from other hand, it may be not a bug, but a feature of a system, because it pays to people by handling them some power, I believe it helps them to not burn out too fast. It charges the community with struggles and a constant fight, it provokes people-centered procedures, not rule-centered.