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@eaton @koen_hufkens @pluralistic @academicchatter Actually, I think the network effects in FOSS projects are less binding than those of a platform like Twitter. Forks do happen, and they happen even in major projects with many contributors and a lot of corporate involvement (the modern GCC compiler is actually the ultimately prevailing side of a past fork, for example). The number of participants is far lower -- orders of magnitude lower -- than the number of users in a popular social network, and the influential participants tend to know who each other are and have some degree of familiarity with each others' thinking.

Empirically, FOSS BDFLs are fundamentally different from other kinds of BDFL. Not only can people leave at any time, occasionally they actually do. And the threat that they might do so is ever-present for any FOSS BDFL, thus tempering their behavior.