Hi Gianluca,
This is to say: both BoD and ESC with a fixed number of members should
be elected from "members" and "members-developers"
That might work; its not a terrible idea. Then again - I am not aware
of any other project where the maintainers are elected 
So corporations and governments would have a direct role in both the
political and technical bodies without a predominance of anybody.
I -really- think that an informal approach, where large contributors
are invited to join the ESC (don't like the name frankly), and we have a
healthy mix of volunteers works best.
Clearly the elected representatives can replace the ESC if it goes bad
- a useful check on their influence.
Let's say corporation X and government Y gain enough members to control
the ESC. Economically speaking, they can form a cartel and exclude any
Lol 
No enlargement of the ESC would prevent such situation, because no
enlargement would be permitted at all by the dominant members.
..
Just like Oracle with OOo.
It is possible in theory. Of course, elections are not without their
potential problems too: creating division, disgruntled loosers, and
campaigning over political points in the (often fragile) volunteer
developer community
However, the ESC isn't simply a technical meeting place. In a software
project, devs do *the* work, so they have the real power.
Sure - so we need to make the ESC reflect those doing the actual work,
but this is non-controversial IMHO. Even Oracle managed to do this
reasonably well: we had IBM, Novell, RedHat, Canonical etc. there - the
problem there was not a lack of representation.
And ESC, IMO, with its unknown number of members and cooptation, is
more likely open to external and uncontrolled bid for power.
As/when the ESC turns bad; it should be easy to see. Then we can get it
kicked out and re-formed by the board.
This is how GNOME works; thus far the 'release team' has not gone bad,
and plenty of people have come and gone through the team.
Good suggestions, though I'd like a fixed number of ESC members too.
On the contrary; I would like it flexible; so if RedFlag joins, or IBM
joins, we can immediately offer them permanant representation (eg.)
rather than having to pick who to kick off
or waiting for another
election cycle.
Meritocracy is great, but a quiet, relational process works rather well
too IMHO, and having a small group of people who can actually decide
things and work together effectively is really useful.
ATB,
Michael.