Instead of all this drama the person that cannot see any way forward, despite a valid example of Ubuntu making this work, should be removed from the critical path by the instrument of a fork. Otherwise it will just be a matter of time before another bike-shedding, multiple years-spanning incident happens again.

By creating a fork and proving that it works, the discussion becomes about whether to merge patches or adopt the fork rather than sterile "what if"s.

Edit: added last paragraph