I'll start off with a hyperbole: We don't have any of that.

But that isn't really true. Arch historically has always been a DIY distribution with an equally DIY contribution structure. Our leaders has been BDFLs for close to two decades until the process was formalized and we held our first project leader election this year.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/DeveloperWiki:Project_L...

https://www.archlinux.org/news/the-future-of-the-arch-linux-...

There isn't any RFC process, but some consensus making on the mailing list and who wants to work on stuff.

The only other formalized structure is the Trusted Users which are elected in a formalized process.

https://aur.archlinux.org/trusted-user/TUbylaws.html

There is probably a lot of bad things with a less formalized process, but it allows Arch to move fairly rapidly and decide things without a lot of internal politics.

Let me make a prediction: if Arch survives as long as Debian has, getting the same amount of contributors as Debian got, by the end its internal organisational structures will look a lot like Debian’s. It looks like at the moment it’s where Debian was about 20 years ago.

Debian is only 9 years older then Arch though. Debian was 7 years 20 years ago, Arch is 18 years this year.

When did technical superiority ever matter when it came to an OS?

Your living in a world where OS/2 kills windows 3.11 for workgroups. Where Sega's master system outsold Super Nintendo.

Yes but in neither of those cases the winner got there because of "better democracy" or governance

Win 3.11 was more user friendly than OS/2.

Not sure about the Sega/Nintendo issue, the Master System was comparable to the NES, the SNES to the Genesis/MegaDrive