@neil I don't think that's true for a volunteer-driven project. Basically no one wants to volunteer to take orders. Contributors volunteer to make something they believe in. The protection for the users is free software itself. If users don't like how a project is running, they can fork, or support someone else who forks. This is the difference between Debian, which is run by volunteer contributors, vs Ubuntu/RedHat/etc which are companies that serve customers to make a profit.
I'd see a considerable difference between "taking orders" and "listening to user feedback", especially in a project which actually wants users?
@neil I agree, I'm talking about the actual power structures of the organizations. Debian is a constitutional democracy of its core contributors that have agreed to put users and free software first as a community: "Our priorities are our users and free software"
https://www.debian.org/social_contract
Users do not have a vote. From what I've heard, Wikimedia Foundation is similarly controlled by the volunteer editors.
Do you know of any free software project where users have a defined binding vote?
