After reading that entire thread, it seems to be that IBM/Strongloop wants to maintain ownership of the project without contributing the resources. They expect dougwilson to continue running the project but he doesn't want to unless it is under the expressjs organization or something like that.

Apparently IBM threw a few guys into discovery on the project a few weeks ago and they may actively get involved, but it is yet to be seen. Maybe IBM just wants to own it and doesn't care what happens to the project one way or the next. I have no way of knowing what IBM's intentions are, and I think that's the concern of the maintainer, dougwilson.

Actually the main dev, dougwilson, finishes his post with this:

"I continue to work in community-owned organizations on GitHub, and if Express were to ever join a community org like "expressjs", I may be back."

Yikes.