But "some other projects" undoubtedly includes Diaspora, and that's liable to keep him tied up for a long time, even after it's released.
It might be worth considering handing the project off to an enterprising upstart young project leader.
If only more people would do what karajorma did, focus on one thing at a time. The community has severe lack of certain skills and a lot of projects are chugging along very slowly because resources are spread thin. Instead people could focus and finish one project at a time, then move to another. Supporting previous projects won't take as much time as active development does. Assuming of course that it's done properly the first time, which it should if skilled people work together.
For example, Diaspora would be finished much, much faster if more people would focus on it, finish it and then move on. This adds a lot of pressure to project management though, but it's very much doable.
But this isn't going to happen. People will always work on their "pet projects", spread few resources even thinner and as a result everything takes forever to finish. And then there are people who just enjoy joining every conceivable project out there, but never really communicate, cooperate or get anything useful done.