Who controls glibc?

Speaking as an FSF associate member, I don't, and I say that despite a great deal of respect for what RMS has accomplished. Any governance model that empowers one person that way seems rather dangerous to me. It's also not compatible with how tax-exempt non-profits should be run in the United States. (I realize that many of them, particularly ones founded by charismatic leaders, are run that way, but I think that's a bug, not a feature.)

The Free Software Foundation, like any other tax-exempt US non-profit, has a board of directors who are legally responsible for the actions of the FSF as a whole. They certainly are, and should be, reluctant to override RMS, but they should be capable of doing so if the situation warrants. (Jokes in manuals definitely don't; questions of maintenance authority for well-run GNU projects might.)

If RMS wants an organization that he solely and exclusively controls, well, don't make it a tax-exempt non-profit. Receiving preferential treatment from society and government because your organization supports the public good comes with an obligation to be responsible to the public and a board of directors for one's actions.

And even short of that (I certainly hope this particular issue doesn't get escalated to that level), devolution of authority is generally a good thing. GNU maintainers should be empowered to make decisions about the software they maintain in areas that aren't foundational. And this fairly obviously isn't foundational -- how many people reading this even knew that passage was there? Given that, how much influence could it have possibly had over the political question it tries to address?