Java founder James Gosling has taken a job with Google, he revealed in a blog post yesterday.
“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,” Gosling wrote. “One of the toughest things about life is making choices. I had a hard time saying ‘no’ to a bunch of other excellent possibilities.”
Gosling left Oracle last year after it purchased Sun Microsystems, the company where he created Java, the now-ubiquitous programming language. While initially somewhat vague about the reasons for his departure, it has been revealed that the reasons include inadequate compensation and an atmosphere of micromanagement.
His arrival at Google comes as the company is being sued by Oracle over alleged Java patent and copyright infringements in its Android OS. That matter and others have raised tensions in the Java community of late.
“Developers are unsure what future controls Oracle will try to foist over the Java community,” said Redmonk analyst Michael Coté. “It’s hard for many Java developers to feel sympathy for anything less than a very, very open Java after it was open-sourced many years ago.”
