The maintainers there blogged at-length about the inferiority of non-Googlers and the tedium of dealing with the unwashed masses -- typical NIH syndrome -- this

The maintainers there blogged at-length about the inferiority of non-Googlers and the tedium of dealing with the unwashed masses -- typical NIH syndrome -- this is the same philosophy that the Go team is influenced by, perhaps with only a less hostile tone. NIH syndrome was widely cited as one of the major flaws of the Smalltalk community back in the day. In any human endeavor, one has to fight the tendency of a group turning something which isn't a club, into a club. That said, golang isn't a field. It isn't a genre. It's a computer language, a collection of libraries, and a number of online communities. In large part, it's a collection of tools with support around it, people interested in using it, and a company behind it. There are lots of things like this. Leica cameras. Rigol oscilloscopes. Chevy LS3 crate engines. Harley Davidson Motorcycles. These things live and die by continuing to garner the goodwill of the market and staying honest with themselves. On the flip side, many of those things also live or die through good design, and good design also needs gatekeepers and visionaries. It's a balancing act. Golang in particular needs to watch its step. Since it has a syntax on the minimalist side with few surprises and easy access to its AST, it's going to be one of the easier languages to port off of.