Not creating a duplicate package would be preferable on my part too. However, I tried working with the maintainer and I was left dissatisfied. The package updates are permanently late and handling of my suggestions has not been great. I asked the maintainer if I can become a co-maintainer and haven't received any response. I considered requesting orphaning, but that sounded a bit aggressive to me, since although not to my satisfaction, the maintainer does keep maintaining the package. I don't wanna be held back by those problems and I wanna share my work with the rest of the community, hence the new package.