Thanks Jon, we hope to be around in 5 years too!
It's always going to be an open-source standalone CMS, and nothing will change that. Even an Aldryn-based django CMS site can be made into a standalone site very easily, so django CMS will never depend on Aldryn in any way.
We're always trying to find the right balance for the way django CMS is developed. The fact that there is a team dedicated to it at Divio is what has made this step forward possible in a way that would not have been in the past.
We also continue to rely on community input and effort, and that's not going away.