Actually, that’s a big problem. Can someone be a leader if there is nobody to lead? Contributors are the ones getting work done. Without contributors nothing will get done.
The main problem is that CP community isn’t that small, there’s a lot of users. But 99% of users have a lot to say but no willingness/ability to help get sh*t done.
A lot of users over the past 4 years wanted CP to be separate from WP, yet 3-5 users actually contribute to the core development.
I saw someone on Twitter complain that it took us too long to get PHP 8.0 support, yet I haven’t seen that person contribute to CP anything.
This is the nature of open source. But it’s more visible on a smaller scale, with a smaller user base.
This is also why we went away from petitions and fully democratic process. People want things, but are not willing (or able) to help get it done.
So people getting work done are the ones who end up making the decisions.
Fully democratic process and committees hurt CP in the early years, drove people away from the project. This is why we are where we are today.
The few people that contribute are basically working part-time jobs for free. This isn’t sustainable, they will burn out eventually.
Either path, 1 or 2, requires contributors to do the work. Lots of people commented, only 2-3 will contribute most likely.
Note: Core development isn’t the only work that needs to be done. Non-coders can contribute too. Documentation, translations, forum moderating, system administration managing infrastructure, writing blog posts, etc. Everyone can contribute regardless of skill, if they’re willing to.