FOSS communities have historically developed governance models that include within them biases and other problems, often belatedly recognized. For example, there is now general agreement that no dictator can be benevolent. Common alternatives to the "benevolent" dictator— the "meritocracy", "do-acracy", and the self-perpetuating committee — also have serious problems. Often the alternative offered to these kinds of governance systems is for some kind of elected governance body.

Democratic governance institutions are messy, however. We'll consider some historical examples of problems that have occurred in various democratic FOSS initiatives and organizations, and will focus particularly on the Open Source Initiative (OSI) board of directors elections of 2025. We'll consider the question: how can we design elected governance bodies for FOSS that truly represent the views of our community and are held properly accountable to their constituencies?

Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier will moderate this panel, and additional individuals have been invited and will be added once they are confirmed.