Father of Java

Question : Microsoft and Sun Microsystems: friends or foes?

Mr.Gosling : Yeah, we’ve had a lot of history… [laughs] and court cases. There was a period about 10 years ago when we had good cooperative relations. But when the top management at Microsoft decided that this cooperation was to the detriment of the company’s financial gains, and it waned.

We still have a contract with Microsoft. Mainly we continue to cooperate heavily around the evolution and implementation of web services. And we have access to all their internal specifications … Basically, we build products that are about compatibility with Windows.

Question : Any plans to retire?

Mr.Gosling : Hmm… What does it mean to retire? For some that comes after having children, when you lose the ability to work 16 hour days, which in some places is a requirement for software engineers. The limiting factor as far as I am concerned is: Does your brain stay sharp and can you learn new things?

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