Who can recover stuck funds on Ethereum?

I started reading a pull-request to ethereum/EIPs repository as an EIP editor. The PR soon became a storm, and out I am not an EIP editor anymore.

During these two weeks, I never doubted good intention of everybody, for cheaper/expensive coordination, for full/partial/zero recoveries, irritated/questioning/angry. I was learning while running and changing colors of the pull-request, as a result confusing people, until I figured out I don’t have the capacity to act there.

I don’t regret having made a splash. I believe the issue deserved attention from the Ethereum community. However, I also felt the pain of people who were waiting, but for whom, in the end, I didn’t have enough power to serve. I was participating as an individual. I don’t remember how and why I was chosen as an EIP editor. Perhaps because I was finding many typos in the specifications of new virtual machine features. Whom could I represent? I think I was representing the virtual machine. Sigh.

Close to the end, I mentioned an article in the Japanese penal code “… unlawfully creates without due authorization an electromagnetic record which is for use in such improper administration …”, which worried me at that time. I was caught in a process of setting up a standard for some electromagnetic record that can move balances around. Why could I do that? After some sleepless hours, I wondered why I was reading the law as an EIP editor, so I resigned. After a calm day, the words look like a question. Just reversing: what would a lawful process with due authorization look like?

A well-represented governance (including private key holders, miners, node maintainers, engineers) would be able to answer that question.