'Father Of Java' Gosling Not Happy, Resigns From Oracle

James Gosling, the original designer of the Java programming language at Sun Microsystems before that company was acquired by Oracle, wrote in his blog that he has resigned from Oracle.

Gosling, in a blog post filled with innuendo about how, for him at least, life under Oracle was more difficult than under Sun, wrote that he resigned on April 2.

Oracle in late January closed its acquisition of Sun, a process stalled for over half a year due to regulatory concerns from the European Union. During that time, Sun's business fell sharply as customers put off purchases while trying to understand how Sun might change under Oracle.

Gosling, in his blog post, hinted that the work environment at Oracle was significantly different from what he was used to at Sun.

For instance, when it came to explain why he left Oracle, he wrote, "Just about anything I could say that would be accurate and honest would do more harm than good."

He also said that his new blog site contains his blog posts from his time at Sun, where that company gave bloggers rights to their own posts. "The few more recent blog entries that I did at blogs.sun.com were written under somewhat more strict policies :-)," he wrote.

Gosling, often called the Father of Java, was a vice president and Fellow at Sun Microsystems, where he created the original design of the Java programming language and implemented its original compiler and virtual machine.

Most of the responses to Gosling's post thanked him for his contribution to Java and the Java community, but several were negative comments about what the community expects from Java under Oracle.

For instance, someone named Ed Lycklama, wrote, "Worst news for all Java community. Even more horrible than the purchase of sun."

Gosling said he doesn't know what he's going to do next "other than take some time off before I start job hunting."

Gosling is only the latest high-profile resignation of former Sun executives since that company was acquired by Oracle.

Simon Phipps, Sun's chief open source officer, resigned early last month, according to a blog he posted that day accompanied by a photo of a setting sun. He did not provide details about why he was leaving or say whether his departure was forced or voluntary.