@Ben Cook - Matt has been working on establishing WordPress as a Non Profit organization since the projects beginnings in 2003. A reliable source of information told me that recently, the paperwork was finally being completed or had been completed to place WordPress.org into a Non Profit ORG status and furthermore, there would be a board of members or trustees that would provide oversite of the project. This is a decision Matt has made himself to go non profit, not any of the dev team.

I suppose if you wanted to get conspiracy theorists about it, you could make a case for three of the core committers being employed by Automattic but considering I asked Matt in a previous interview the question "Has there ever been a decision made for WordPress.org solely for the financial benefit of WordPress.com" He responded with No. I'm willing to take his word for it.