‘Bikeshed issue’ refers to the effect of having a discussion where everyone can easily form an opinion on. Such as choosing a paint colour for a bikeshed that needs to be painted.
I do think this standard, if successful, would trickle down to users outside enterprise settings. Similarly to how Red Hat was/is the force behind Gnome, Wayland, (if I recall correctly) pipewire, and many now ‘universal’ parts of modern linux user-space.
It’s very clear this project aims to be that force in enterprise linux. And if successful, they would determine the direction of development.
And simply put: most people prefer stuff actively developed by a full-time team of software engineers. Some of us don’t, but usually those need to adapt to the new standard, or miss out on software developed assuming such ‘standard’ userspace.
This is why I think it truly is a bikeshed issue. Everyones bike will eventually be in the shed, if the shed gets painted.
I personally am carefully optimistic, as long as the community (you and me, not just our bosses) care enough to contribute. And the organisation makes it easy and accessible.
Of course having meaningful community participation is only the first step. The community can make bad decisions or incoherent decisions, that’s part of having meaningful power.
Lastly I think the organisation knows the reputation of the companies founding it is, on average, not great. So I expect them to truly make their best to engage the community meaningfully and in good faith. Without it, I don’t think they will convince even rocky linux to switch, let alone achieve meaningful compatibility standard of any kind.