> I'd get a small team of ideological allies and work with them on some very complicated and technical component which outsiders couldn't readily understand >

> I'd get a small team of ideological allies and work with them on some very complicated and technical component which outsiders couldn't readily understand > we'd dismiss all external contributions as "not fitting the project vision". Many cite the project in question as something they understand better, that helps them manage systems better, and it has contributions from more than a thousand people. If I were going to sabotage Debian, I'd arrange for them to make a collective decision where they can't just say "let's do both"; evidence suggests that's worth at least a decade of infighting, and requires a relatively small group of folks committed to demanding support for their niche. Or, alternatively, I'd arrange for Debian to make enough "do all the things" decisions that its maintainers collapse under the weight of what they're collectively demanded to support.