The worst attended session for me at DrupalCon San Francisco was the one about the Drupal Association. ;) But also a very informative one.
They discussed it's role and how in it's mission it specifically says that it has no control over the design or direction of the Drupal project, which I guess is different from some other open source associations. The main job of the association is hosting events and web pages, and supported the infrastructure for those web pages. The association was originally a Belgium-based nonprofit, but they are in the process of creating one in the US. It can take a long time to get IRS approval for 501c3 status.
One thing they covered is the trademark on the word Drupal, and I thought it would be worthwhile to mention that to the group here. The trademark is owned by Dries Buytaert, the inventor of Drupal. Their main concern is that nobody uses the word in ways that make them sound endorsed or to be an official representative. Dries has a site at drupal.com with a link to their trademark policy at the lower right. At the session, they said that the main thing is that if you use the word drupal in a domain name, you should check the policy. Since I market my freelance services with drupalbydean.com, I checked.
It seemed like I qualified for an "automatic license" to use it that way, but I emailed them just to check - they have a form there. I got a response a week or two later that my use did qualify for the automatic license, and nothing further was required. There are certain situations where you might have to apply for a license. It's in the policy, which does a pretty good job of avoiding nasty legalese.
And in general it's not a bad idea to check out drupal.com now and then.