As others, I think the easiest thing Cox could say in response to these posts is: "Yeah, you're right. Go is open source but it's not community driven. There's a small, insular core team, we have full control over the language, we have a clear vision, we're going to follow that vision, and we think the results so far have justified this approach. We hope you choose to continue to use and, where appropriate, contribute to the project and the larger ecosystem."

Go is a very impressive project, and the core team does have very tight control over it, and (very plausibly) that tight control is responsible for the quality of the language. I don't think it necessarily needs to change; certainly not any time soon. Why not embrace it?

And I think, if he did that, it would end the drama in a heartbeat, because what's left to discuss?

But by not acknowledging it’s what they are doing they leave space for drama. Worse is if they think they are doing something else, because they are missing their intentions by a wide mark.

There's precedence, for instance, C# is Microsoft's turf.

Seems to me to be a basic human thing - if people are worried, downplaying their worries backfires.