This apparent, but that's because there does not seem to be any obvious conflicts of interest - further diminished by the fact that they're all paid by Google,

This apparent, but that's because there does not seem to be any obvious conflicts of interest - further diminished by the fact that they're all paid by Google, work for Google, and inherently serve Google's interest. If push came to shove, and we saw a war between G and say ... Oracle, over a kind of 'programming language' ... you can be darn sure the claws will come out and it will be apparent 'who owns what' etc.. In the end it may not matter: Go is what it is, it's not set up for licensing or battle, so this all may be moot.