@Ben Cook - I can't speak for WordPress.org. From an Automattic perspective I can tell you that it never was and never will be our goal to own or profit from WordPress.org, and that we've worked hard to balance the potential conflicts of interest between Automattic and WordPress.org. While we don't always get it right, I think the overall results have been very positive. On the commercial side, dozens of successful businesses have formed around WordPress (Automattic, Crowd Favorite, StudioPress, etc). On the community side, the number of contributors, plugins, downloads, etc have gone up ten fold in the last 3 years.