Hi,
Simon answered most of the raised points already but I'd like to emphasize this statement a litte:
-> We'd by very happy if someone forks batman-adv to provide modules for recent kernels still using version 14
Recently, we discussed a stable release policy on IRC with T_X as you might have seen. We (as batman developers) are very much in favor of longterm stable release maintained by someone. You could backport kernel support or even critical fixes. We will surely help anyone willing to take on this task. The respository can be hosted on open-mesh.org and you can even write announcements to let others know about your work.
Of course, you can also host it elsewhere and do all the work on your own but then it will be harder for others to find your work.
Cheers, Marek