Anarchy in Linux

I see a standard story, repeated in FOSS spaces. It starts with an exchange.

Open source projects are not actually as anarchic as people think. They work very much like a corporation, with a single person in charge, in pyramid.

I hear these repeated gripes that people do not understand open source development, but it always sounds like people don't understand anarchy. Perhaps they imagine ten thousand headless-chickens writing code with entirely different aims, and occasionally squawking at each other 'pull request! Buck-buck-buck-pull request!'.

Of course the majority of open source projects have a 'benevolent dictator', because they only have one maintainer. But 'monarchy of one' does not make a dictatorship, it means true anarchy. The thousands of people who submit code to the ffmpeg are not bound by chains to the will of the maintainer, they're free to do anything they want with ffmpeg - anything except demand that everyone accepts their code.

It might sound like a small excuse to coders that they don't have to accept code because the maintainer can throw you in jail, but because nobody will use their copy if the maintainer does not accept it. But it's not a small excuse in practice, and not a small difference when it comes to political theory.

Open source projects are anarchy. There is no purer example of anarchy.

You have to accept Windows as-is, or the system will fight you. You can accept Linux as-is, or the system will give you the tools to change it to become whatever you want. And if you can't stand the work, then you can join any group you want.