Sun co-founder and chief scientist Bill Joy, who developed many a Unix technology like the BSD Unix redesign and the seminal Network File System (NFS), contributed to Sun's defining Sparc chip and has recently been behind the poorly adopted Java-based P2P scheme Jxta, has handed in his notice after 21 years with the company. He said in the official announcement that "I have decided the time is now right for me to move on to different challenges." One wonders whether that Joy's way of saying, like Louis XIV before him, "Apres moi, le deluge." Joy's responsibilities, such as they are these days, will transition over to CTO Greg Papadopoulos, the man who uses 25-cent words when nickel ones would do. Joy, who has some personal VC interests and talks like a sociologist, is the last of Sun's original three founders to leave the joint. (No, Scott McNealy wasn't one of them.) He told the Wall Street Journal that he's talked with the great Silicon Valley VC Kleiner Perkins about further investments although he could work for Google - where ex-Sun thinker Eric Schmidt is CEO - Intel or AMD unless "something spectacular comes along." Apparently he'd prefer working with a small team of six-eight engineers. It's been a phased withdrawal. Joy left Silicon Valley years ago to live in Colorado with a lady potter and hasn't been involved with Sun's day-to-day operations since then.

• Bill Joy's Meditation Wall
• Java On Their Minds
• Bill Joy Sees the Stars in Manhattan