> Publishing open source project to Maven is way more difficult than most language ecosystems.

Maybe this is a feature, not a bug. I won't call out the language/repo, but I was able to gain admin access for a library my company published with just an email from my company's domain. There are major security issues with "easy." There are also quality issues. You're more likely to publish something if you think it has value; I've published work to Maven Central, but only the high-quality, reusable work.