I used to work with Darren. An important part of the story is that he used to sell the extensions, but when her got hired by Automattic, one condition was that he needed to not have any WP side-businesses, such as Organize Series. So he made all the extensions free on GitHub. I did not know he asked PublishPress to make a donation as part of the deal! A+ guy! And I think having PublishPress taking over maintenance is great news for its users (even if they reintroduce paid options.)