@that girl again - Good points, but I'm not sure I agree completely.

I have been using the Foundation and WordCamp Central and am quickly realizing they are in essence two different entities, although likely managed by similar individuals. Each have their own focuses. It appears that the Foundation is more the owner of the trademarks, while WCC is more the enforcer of rules and responsible for establishing guidelines.

That being said, I really don't think it comes down to wanting anyone not to be bigger than anyone else. It comes down to a leasor / lease relationship. The Foundation owns the trademark and as such chooses to lease the trademark to the organizers under a set of rules that WordCamp Central is responsible for enforcing. It's not the responsibility of the Foundation to comply with rules set for the lease's as, well, they own it and can do whatever they want. Its like in any business offering a services, they own and can do whatever they want regardless of what their affiliates and resellers are constrained to.

I've only recently come to this way of thinking after several off-line conversations that have helped me better understand the relationships and the reality of the situation.

All that being said...

In regards to this: "I don’t quite know where people get the idea that the Foundation is in any way accountable to the community. It’s not a democratic or representative organisation, just the means by which Matt protects his assets and redistributes some of the largesse to arbitrarily selected beneficiaries."

I guess it comes from this on the Foundations page:

"The WordPress Foundation is a charitable organization founded by Matt Mullenweg to further the mission of the WordPress open source project: to democratize publishing through Open Source, GPL software."

The reference to "democratizing" publishing is what I'm referring to. How do you democratize publishing without the things you reference, community engagement and representation?

Maybe its another one of those instances where we don't mean what we say, I don't know. I like to think that when it comes to these things people choose carefully what they right and mean what they say - maybe I am naive.