alt Hacker Newsas someone who works in the python tooling space I think you underestimate the number of people who would be willing to do this. i would personally help maintain a community fork of ruff if it got to the point where one was needed, though I draw the line at moving to nebraska first.
It is proven by the amount of projects that eventually falled by the wayside after the first wave of volunteers run out of steam to keep it going post-fork.