I think this is more accurately vice signalling.

I think I almost understand what you’re getting at. If I do, it’s uncodifiable. You can’t draft an organisational system with a clause that no one is allowed to use logical fallacies to defend it.

I think it is not. Certainly most projects aren’t solely personal utilities, but devs working for fun rather than profit will almost inevitably produce something skewed towards their own tastes and skills. See: the presentation of any FOSS graphical app vs a paid equivalent.

That’s a pretty weak definition. “Legitimate” especially is a vacuous term, and every form of democracy ever proposed is (theoretically) “accountable”.