Java papa James Gosling, who left Oracle on Good Friday slamming the door behind him, has dropped another provocative hint about the circumstances of his departure from Sun's new master.

When he blogged that he'd quit, he wrote "As to why I left, it's difficult to answer: Just about anything I could say that would be accurate and honest would do more harm than good. The hardest part is no longer being with all the great people I've had the privilege to work with over the years."

Now he's saying that he's been "spending quality time with my lawyer, resigning has been a full time job (before I quit, several friends said I'd need a lawyer because ‘this is Oracle we're talking about'...sadly, they were right)...."

"I didn't leave Oracle because I had some next great thing to go to. I'm feeling pretty burned out and trashed, so the only thing I know for certain is that I'll be taking some time off....

"Here in Silicon Valley, starting a company has become pretty tough: the traditional method of getting funding from venture capitalists has largely fallen apart. A couple of key factors have been the poor health of the financial markets, making exit strategies hard to come by; and the expensive and grotesque mockery that SOX compliance has become. But bootstrap funding can be workable for service and support businesses, which is a common model in the open source world. Given that a central pillar of Oracle's acquisition methodology is making job offers that involve a (often significant) salary cut, there are lots of talented folks leaving and trying to figure out what to do next in their lives. One significant positive impact looks like it's going to be the creation of a whole pile of small businesses. It's already happening, and I'm sure there will be a lot more."

His remarks suggest Oracle couldn't pay Gosling enough to stay there. Well, in a matter of speaking that is.

See http://nighthacks.com/roller/jag/.

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