Hi Michael;

As a follower of Blender 3D development I can tell you that you are still in control and can dictate what go into your code, in blender we have a number of coders that made the final decision what can go into each release and we have a test branch that people can experiment with new features and eventually some of the features in the branch are merged into new release and so on. I have been followed the blender development since when it was not opensource and went bankrupt before Ton came up with idea of raising $100000 by donation from blender community (they did it within less than a month! from memory) to release Blender into opensource. Other failing commercial projects has been copied this model since or even just go opensource route and concentrated on selling support and services.

Since then Blender 3D has been downloaded more than 200000+ (2006 figure) and has been sponsor by danish governement and other bodies. I think Blender Foundation has been growing by reap and bound after opensource would speak for itself. Well at least it has create a knee jerk reaction in the 3d community that commercial products has to released water marked version of their products for people try for free!

Other projects also has donate their source code to further Blender growth such nurbana, sharp sculpt, and many others.

I have raise this issue with you a year since and I think you should consider it. I don't know what is your aim for this product but I think it is a revolutionary product that need to be foster and live on. Opensource will ensure its enternity.