@Steve: ("reply" unavailable again ... )

Certainly the idea of freemium and similar business planning applies here as it always has for Automattic and does in so mays places, and I'm not saying "I'm right". I believe I am, of course, but ... thank goodness for that! ;-)

And ultimately there are two great truths here, that 50% fantasy not actually being one of them. 1) Yes, the company needs to make money (like ... at this point I believe they NEED to; refer back to my "pay the VCs" point), and 2) there's nothing wrong with making money!

And as my dealings with Automattic went in a way that I found incredibly short-sited on their part and left me disappointed (although in the wake of http://wordpress.answerguy.com we've moved onto a plan in http://thewebsitehelpers.com that's going to monetize faster and perhaps bigger), I obviously have a predisposition to see Automattic's actions through a jaded lens.

AND as I said yesterday, Calypso being open-source deserves to be at least mentioned; MaTT and Co. are sticking to their roots at some level.

But I still see enough of a divergence between the way the .ORG software "is" and the path being forged for .COM that the fork thing looks pretty big—and that it ultimately has the potential to be a community destroyer.

This has been fun, Steve. Thanks for indulging me!