> The odd part here to me is that it seems to be the norm that, if you want to join the maintainer team of Guile, you ask RMS and you don't even need to talk to

> The odd part here to me is that it seems to be the norm that, if you want to join the maintainer team of Guile, you ask RMS and you don't even need to talk to the existing maintainer team first. Well, this issue was much more complicated than that, wasn't it? In this case the role of RMS is more as that f an arbiter. Apart from that, RMS is the leader of the GNU project. When I submitted my little project to GNU, I first talked to RMS (it was many years ago, o I don't remember the details, but I wrote to some general address and he answered). By submitting my project to GNU, I accepted his leadership, and it was a conscious decision, I knew very well what to expect. Actually, RMS seemed to me quite reasonable and down-to-earth about technical issues, even though I often disagree with him on philosophical issues. In an ideal world, everyone collaborates harmoniously and no intervention is needed. In practice, clashes do happen sometimes, and under such circumstances the role of the leader is crucial in helping to find a reasonable solution.