As I posted earlier [1], I don't consider the current "organization" to be legitimate at all. People who have watched this situation over the years might notice that the "guides" were supposed to be temporary, and that the "castaways" were supposed to be temporary... but nowadays, the "coordinators" now seem to consider themselves enshrined by default?
I warned the castaways that this would happen, that they themselves would come to think of themselves as leaders given a continuing power vacuum. Despite declarations that they do not actually consider themselves self-styled leaders, etc., [2], things are the same 10 months later. The castaways web site still lists the original "all your base belong to us" email as their mission statement.
I would suggest the Debian Constitution [3] as a great starting point for the Squeak community. It has worked well for them, and they have a similar organization to the Squeak group. Here's an article I wrote earlier on the idea, back when I was burning 5-10 hours per week to help with Squeak organization issues (time, I fear, I no longer can contribute):
http://people.squeakfoundation.org/article/45.html
The first change to think about is to elect leaders every year or maybe two, without term limits (open source volunteering is inherently limited anyway!). I also like the idea we've explored of having a release manager, and would further suggest that the release manager gets elected, too. Elections provide accountability.
Overall, the current setup is illegitimate and is ill-advised anyway, despite the quality of the individuals involved. For a healthy community, there's no better time than the present to improve our organization.
-Lex
[1] http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/pipermail/squeak-dev/2005-February/088316....
[2] http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/pipermail/squeak-dev/2005-February/088335....