Fans of SDF
There is already a FOSS stack exchange clone: https://codidact.org/
SE's DB schema is public (https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/2677/database-schema-documentation-for-the-public-data-dump-and-sede/2678#2678), and SE content is CC-by-SA 4.0 with database dumps regularly posted to archive.org: (https://archive.org/details/stackexchange).
All that is to say: there is a lot of groundwork done and the SE data could be ported over...
I was thinking the same thing, however, I don’t know how to solve the bot issue. The value of StackOverflow is the upvoting of best answers but that becomes difficult to achieve without a solid user reputation system. However, as we saw with Reddit, this tends to reward “group think” and punishes divergent opinions.
Like Reddit, Stack Exchange is nothing without it's users, especially moderators, and the relationship has been in decline. Moderators have been upset a few times over the last five years, but the company has done a better job than Reddit in smoothing things over. The latest issue is the company's abrupt reversal in allowing AI content, after saying such content won't be permitted.
Another difference not in Stack Exchange's favour is that the community leans very technical, so the jump to a federated version is perhaps not as unpalatable to their audience. But like @ratamcue wrote, there are some minor features that would need to be built.
All in all, I think it's a great candidate for federation. As for a catalyst, with rising interest rates and companies being pressured to increase profit, it may come down to their financials and what they are 'forced' to do. Being a private company, we don't know their situation, but if they get squeezed, I reckon it's there.
And just because I found it interesting, they have a page on their infrastructure.