Shame, at the very least I was hoping this would lead to approaching someone to work as a go between.

(I find it difficult to believe nobody tried to step up to that position either)

Yeah, I don't really get why Kent wouldn't find people to handle upstreaming process that will satisfy Linus if he can't handle it himself. It would solve the problem and avoid all this collaboration friction.

If there is a need for out of tree emergency patches (until they get merged), it can always be communicated somewhere.