A few points ...

One, to me donncha is WPMU; and, his comments make the announcement very simple to understand. The first question that came to mind when I read about the merger was: I wonder what Donncha will be doing? Then it occured to me: he appears to be on vacation.

This leads to my next point that has me thinking this has been an event already long in the planning ... did not Donncha tweet a "hello" to WCSF shortly before the announcement?

Another point, would this be part of the reason why 2.8 has been so long in the pre-release cycle; is the new code being confirmed to be valid in the new WP/MU codebase?