March 28, 2011, 9:55 AM —
The Java world got a bit of a surprise this morning when Java creator James Gosling revealed that he is now working for Google.
In his blog entry today, Gosling announced the news in brief fashion:
"Through some odd twists in the road over the past year, and a tardis encountered along the way, I find myself starting employment at Google today. One of the toughest things about life is making choices. I had a hard time saying 'no' to a bunch of other excellent possibilities."
One can only imagine the opportunities Gosling has been offered since he left his former employer Oracle last year. But Google, it seems, is his next landing pad.
Ironically, since Gosling worked for Oracle, and Oracle acquisition Sun Microsystems before that, one of his patents (RE38,104) is being used by Oracle in their patent infringement suit against Google over the Dalvik Java machine. Which could make talk around the water cooler a bit interesting.
What may also make the conversation sparkle is Gosling's historical issues with Android itself. In 2009, he voiced his criticisms against Android and its ecosystem in an interview with eWeek:
"One of the reasons that we charge license fees is because we've got organizations of people that do compatibility testing and actual negotiating amongst the different handset makers so that things like GPS APIs look the same. And what's going on in the Android world is there's kind of no adult in charge. And all these handset manufacturers are doing whatever they damn well please. Which means that it's just going to be randomness. It could be let a thousand flowers bloom, but it also could be a dog's breakfast. And I guess having been around the track a few times, it feels like it's going to be more of a dog's breakfast."
Today, Gosling doesn't seem to have a title or mission yet.
"I don't know what I'll be working on," he wrote, "I expect it'll be a bit of everything, seasoned with a large dose of grumpy curmudgeon."
Whatever Gosling's going to do, one thing's for sure: the Java world just got a lot more interesting.
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