I realize that Debian (the distribution) has had a major hiccup or two over the years *cough*OpenSSL*cough*, but it still happens to be one of the best global software development projects that exist. I don't pretend to understand how the current Bitcoin developers handle things, but I would be interested in learning about how this type of system might benefit or hinder Bitcoins. Is this type of democracy not useful for what Bitcoin is trying to accomplish? If you haven't checked it out yet, here is their constitution:
http://www.debian.org/devel/constitution .
