[Nathaniel Smith]

...
Well, sure, we can try to come up with something to slot into the
space Guido is leaving, while keeping everything else the same, that's
one option.

There are already differences between "a Guido" and what Larry suggested.

But I doubt it's the best one.

Then please suggest something specific you think is better.

Guido is, quite literally, irreplaceable.

Yet the roles he played are not self-evidently dispensable either.

> The US Supreme Court is the closest thing to a dictatorial institution the
> US has (lifetime appointments, answerable to nobody, and against which there
> is no appeal), so it's a natural model to consider when replacing a
> dictator.

Yeah, I get why it comes to mind for USians here, but there are also,
like... lots of actual open-source projects that have transitioned
from a BDFL model to something else, and they're probably even more
natural models ;-).

Then spell out what they did and how that worked for them? I'm not familiar with any such. The closest match to Python's development process I know of was Perl's, but Larry Wall is still (AFAIK) dictator-for-life in Perl world.

On the face of it, sure, I'd rather look at a successful transition in an open source software project than at the centuries-old experiment that brought us American politics ;-)