After you fork, you know you can just pull from the original project? That's why they call it the upstream.
Perhaps you're saying that you can't take the community with you? That doesn't seem like a reasonable expectation. You can fork, and you can continue to pull from upstream, but you can't force people to use it.
You might be able to move yourself but moving any significant amount of developers is in practise impossible.
So it's better to force that significant amount of developers to do your bidding? That sounds just a just a weee bit unreasonable, IMHO.
Right but the analogy breaks down in the sense that: Linus is responsible for the developers who won't move. They're his team.
You're basically saying that you want the fruits of Linus's labor without Linus there to do it?
Yes it is. Saying you can just fork it is like saying you can just move yourself and all your family and friends to another country.
You might be able to move yourself but moving any significant amount of developers is in practise impossible.