What they're describing isn't actually a guild, it's just a web of trust.
I guess you could argue that's what guilds were, but guilds enforced membership and the ability to do the associated work; webs of trust merely advise.
Anyway, despite their assurances, it still sounds somewhat bureaucratic. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing but it should be acknowledged, and not just by whatever the libertarian contingent is.
"Web of trust" is an apt name, and I think such broad affiliation is more doomed to gaming than more local approaches. Repo localized guilds, where contribution privileges are earned project to project, might work more effectively. Simple additions to SCM hosting such as pull request filtering by group could facilitate this.
No matter what, if this "Guild" system took off, or webs-of-trust did, there would be multiple ones almost immediately, and several claiming to be the "real" one!
I guess you could argue that's what guilds were, but guilds enforced membership and the ability to do the associated work; webs of trust merely advise.
Anyway, despite their assurances, it still sounds somewhat bureaucratic. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing but it should be acknowledged, and not just by whatever the libertarian contingent is.