I got a really, really stupid question regarding the 12 witnesses:
Are we necessarily talking about one individual per witness? Or could there be the possibility of "witness pools", as in a group of people cooperating to "form" a single witness? If yes, I can see this as a community approach to decide whether or not they think 12 individuals suffice.
Just a thought.
Its one entity, one key-pair, one node in the network.
The entity can be represented by an organization, a foundation, a corporation, or a sleepless person.
The 12 witnesses will most probably include all types, and the bestest witnesses will have clear policies to the public and internal policies and rules of governance - like any good foundation and organization has.
@tonych have you contacted the EFF or Free Software Foundation to see if they want to run a witness?