This is a serious concern. If Linus were replaced by someone more pliable/less attentive Linux will have a serious problem.

That's the problem with "rockstars and "benevolent dictators", the Linuses and the Elon Musks, isn't it? Everything is great until they go away for whatever reason and nobody can fill the void. Hell, there's people still doubting Tim Cook on whether he can fill Jobs' shoes.

I wonder if something like FreeBSD is better suited for sustainability - from what I can tell, there's no "dictator" figure there, no critical single point of failure.

It makes me wonder if there are ways to structure an organization in a way that once it has found its purpose and voice, it becomes rigid in its trajectory.

Consider an organization that would rather cease to exist or be relevant, than to allow itself all the freedoms to pivot and mutate significantly.

Fundamentally this is the difference between 'organizations' and 'institutions'. In the former, the culture and operation are contained in the people who are part of the organization, in the latter the culture and operation are contained in the rules.

Institutions are much harder to set up, they require that you consider that evil people do evil things, so you have to set up rules and processes. The execution of those rules and processes have to span enough people that a conspiracy would be unlikely. It doesn't always work of course, people find ways to subvert institutions (the zero day exploits of their time).

Actually... There is a great historical example of just that. It’s called the Catholic Church.

That's more of a problem with _not_ having them. When you lose prominent contributors you notice how the things were better before, but you are still better off than you would be if they never existed.

Or someone influenced by $$$