14 DAY TRIAL // Google has managed to convince Java's creator James Gosling to join the company after he left Oracle earlier. He was employed by Sun, which created Java, when it was acquired by Oracle. Google is known to get a hold of tech superstars who enjoy very flexible responsibilities at the company, so the move is not that surprising.
Much more interesting is the timing though, Gosling joins Google just as the company is engaged in a legal fight over the Java patents and copyrights now owned by Oracle.
"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 on his blog announcing the move.
"One of the toughest things about life is making choices. I had a hard time saying 'no' to a bunch of other excellent possibilities. I find it odd that this time I'm taking the road more travelled by, but it looks like interesting fun with huge leverage," he continued.
Google scored a win with Gosling's hire, but it's unsure how and whether this will influence the lawsuit in any way. He's not sure what he'll be taking on at Google. Some say it may have to do with Android, which uses Java for all of its apps, even built-in ones, but it is pure speculation.
"I don't know what I'll be working on. I expect it'll be a bit of everything, seasoned with a large dose of grumpy curmudgeon," he said about future plans.
It may look good on the scoreboard to have the creator of Java on your team, but it probably won't do much in court. Regardless of who's working where, Oracle owns the copyright and if the court finds that Google violated the Java license or worse that it copied code from Sun/Oracle, it's not going to go down well.