You don’t adopt an unofficial fork just because it exists. Showing up with a clone isn’t the same as meeting the standards required to be part of the original project

That might have been a possibility if brought forward in an open and reasonable way, a bit harder to trust someone once they just vibe adopted the project someone was working on for decades and didn't seen an issue with that. Also "just" is doing a lot of heavy lifting there.

Maybe there are trust issues now? I certainly would refuse to work with someone who comes and steals my brand, pretends I am on board with this and refuses to comply even after being called out.