ACM President's letter: relation of ACM to the world outside ACM

This is the fourth in a series of letters describing in more detail the six categories I defineated in the August 1975 President's Letter on "The Great Diversity in ACM." This month I shall discuss the diversity of views involving ACM'S relation to the world outside ACM. This is perhaps the most controversial subject within ACM. While I have very strong personal views on this matter, I will attempt in this letter to concentrate on describing the issues and the wide spectrum of opinion, and will use a future letter to state fully my own beliefs on this matter. One of the major dichotomies within ACM has nothing to do with the technical aspects of the computing field, but really involves the way in which an individual feels that ACM should relate to the remainder of the world. ACM is frequently referred to as a "professional society," and in the normal way that words are used, that is the way most of us view it. However, the Internal Revenue Service uses the words differently, and makes a significant distinction between what they call a "professional society" (which by their definition is operated primarily for the benefit of a particular profession or industry) and a "scientific and educational" society (which has its main concern for the public good and education and science-as distinguished from the advancement of other causes however meritorious). ACM is a "scientific 53 and educational" society, although the heart of the issue I am discussing is that some people think ACM should be a "professional society" in the IRS sense. Since most of us view ourselves as professionals in spite of the IRS terminology, and because the terms used in these discussions tend to be misleading, I will use the IRS numerical designations-501 (c)(3) meaning an educational and scientific society (which is ACM'S designation) and 501(c)(6) meaning a professional society (in IRS terminology). The spectrum of ACM members that I know personally runs from one extreme to the other, relative to the interaction between ACM as an organization and the world outside the society, and presumably is representative of the spread in the general membership. The only really unknown factor is what percentage of members (or potential members) are on what part of the scale. Put most simply, those at one end wish ACM to have no involvement with anything other than purely scientific, educational and technical matters, …