Sun Web Chief Tim Bray Moves to Google

"I'd had an offer to stay with Oracle which I decided to decline; I'll maybe tell the story when I can think about it without getting that weird spiking-blood-pressure sensation in my eyeballs," the Canadian explained about his farewell from Oracle.

Bray had been at Sun since 2004 as an XML expert and worked on the initial XML 1.0 standard since 1994. He has held a leading position in the software segment of Web technology.

The overlap of Web technology with open source ultimately motivated him to pursue work with Google, where he will likely have something to do with Android. One of his favorite targets is Apple: "The iPhone vision of the mobile Internet's future omits controversy, sex, and freedom, but includes strict limits on who can know what and who can say what. It's a sterile Disney-fied walled garden surrounded by sharp-toothed lawyers.... I hate it." Bray is counting on Google and the Android to set it right. He feels that Apple apparently thinks it can benefit from the Web while controlling which programs to run on it "and what parts of the stack can be accessed." He continues, "I think they're wrong and see this job as a chance to help prove it."

The 54-year-old is especially interested in apps development on Android, Web standards like HTML 5 and the Android market. He addresses the community with, "Are you an Android developer? Or might you become one? Or have you given up on Android? If you're any of these, you're a person I need to learn from. Help teach me, I'm easy to find: twbray at google.com."

Not to say that Bray will work exclusively on Android, as the new Google "Developer Advocate" himself admits. He apparently does enjoy the opportunity nonetheless. Google will probably mean some getting used to. He made clear in his announcement blog that he didn't want to be silenced: "Google asked to see an advance draft of the piece you're now reading 'for coordinating messaging', but didn't suggest any changes."