Ian Murdock was not forced out of Debian; he resigned in 1996 to focus on school, work, and family. He passed the leadership of the project to Bruce Perens at that time.

Now, since then, the structure has obviously changed... bit it definitely didn't start as a coup d'etat... Debian now has a leadership structures where voting members are defined as well as how leadership positions are voted for. That's far different than a handful of people trying to unseat or take the project away without that infrastructure.

BDFL is perfectly fine as long as original ownership/management has interest in maintaining said position.