Perhaps this is one place AI could prove very helpful - automating the synchronization of forks with their parents while keeping the changes that constitute the actual fork. Or perhaps something other than forking is needed that is more diff based so you have a view of the source overlaid with the fork and the parts unchanged flow through. At least until something like Bun’s change from Zig to Rust blows your fork up completely.
I've been thinking about this as well. How can people "AI federate" their forks, without relying on a single maintainer.
Mostly because in the pi.dev ecosystem there are so many similar extensions and usually everyone wants their own little special something, but then everyone could benefit from maintenance updates/bug fixes.