I'm excited about p2pool as well. But I don't see what makes it democratic. The software is written by forrestv. We don't vote for software features. p2pool is very much controlled by forrestv. I think this is important to understand. At the same time it's important to understand that democracy is not necessary in the context of computer software. If we don't like that p2pool is run by forrestv, we quit. We are free to leave p2pool at any time, and so it becomes a non-issue that it's controlled by a single person. Our choice to leave at any time keeps the author in check, since he is well aware of this fact.

This, not democracy, is the power of open source software.