Re: The bloody obvious
Personally I believe the assertions by the ISOC trustees and staff that there is no personal gain or corruption involved and that they thought they were acting in the best interests of the society. I think they naively saw a generous opportunity to secure the financial future of the society.
However, they apparently missed the fact that this would destroy ISOC - leaving it with plenty of money but no way to achieve its aims as its constituency of supporters (particularly those outside the US) leave and governments and regulators perceive it to now be irrelevant.
I am not alone in planning to leave ISOC if this transaction goes through. I would expect a significant number of the existing chapters and members would support setting up a new society to promote the goals ISOC was supposed to promote.