FreeBSD has over 400 developers around the world who have commit access to the repository. Many of these are willing to commit patches from third parties. If you want to get an idea of the number of patches that have been committed on behalf of other developers, then search for 'Submitted by' in the commit logs. At the time of writing, this is just under twenty thousand, or about ten percent of all commits. After having a few patches accepted, regular contributors are usually encouraged to apply for commit access.
There is no dictator for the FreeBSD project. Decisions are made by the people willing to do the work and, in the case of disputes, resolved by a group of developers that is elected every two years, with everyone that has committed any code in the preceding year being allowed to vote
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