Hi Jason and welcome to the forums!
You're absolutely right, Parabuntu is getting quite dated and someone should do something about it!
No one would be happier than me if you gave it a go.
Incomplete list of things that need to be done:
1. Need to switch from the old abandoned (at least for the armhf arch) linaro 15.04 rootfs to a more recent one.
The Ubuntu base rootfs seems suitable.
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/BaseIronically that page is also quite dated, but they have rootfs's for all releases here:
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-base/releases/ 2. Adjust apt sources to use a more recent Ubuntu release (please go with a LTS)
Ubuntu 18.04 LTS is right around the corner, will be released on April 26 if I'm not mistaken.
Maybe it's too much pain and you should go with 16.04, but it's up to you.
3. Update the parallella-linux kernel
Hopefully this will bring in at least the most urgent Meltdown and Spectre fixes
You need to merge in the most recent stable release from ADI:s tree here :
https://github.com/analogdevicesinc/linux4. Update the FPGA bitstreams
This might not be required but should be done for correctness.
5. Rebuild the ESDK
This might not be required but should be done for correctness (e.g. subtle bugs caused by C++ ABI changes)
The decision on who's the maintaner isn't up to me but IMHO if you pull of creating a good "unofficial community" release then I don't see why you shouldn't at least have commit access to the official repo.
The Parallella project's goal is to become more community driven.
All code is available so nothing's stopping you from creating your own release.
Good luck and have fun,
Ola