Gosling at Google, what if?

So, Google got Gosling. Old news at this point, I know. I was wondering, though, if Google is doing this as part of a bigger plan. Granted, google is not as strategic as Apple, but they are seldom without intent. So, I thought I throw out some completely basis conjecture (the media does, why can’t I ).

Disclaimer: There are no facts after this point. It is all what if scenario / made up / completely unfounded speculation.

What ifs…
What if google had a significant investment in Java, but no license for it?
What if google knew that Java was an important differentiator for themselves?
What if google wanted to grow the Java community to their benefit?
What if google had the biggest names in the Java ecosystem (Gosling, Bloch, Bray, Haase, Russell, Norbye,…)?
What if google realized that Java was open source (GPL)?
What if google forked Java and called it something else (Gava)?
Would the Java community follow?

Oracle owns the rights to the Java brand and the Java TCK (certification). Java’s standards have been the driving force behind holding the community together. There is enormous power in the Java standards from an adoption perspective (think John Nash). Compatibility has been the hallmark of Java and has made CIOs very happy through the years. The brand that Oracle owns, as validated by the test suite they own, is what makes that work. So…

What if google carefully crafted a next generation execution platform for their next generation Gava langauge carefully avoiding patents?
What if google gave Java developers what they have been wanted in the language (closures, properties, etc) while still preserving compatibility for existing applications and servers?
What if they beat Oracle to this delivery?
What if they rolled out Gosling, both publicly and privately to corporations, to say that Google’s Gava was completely compatible with Oracle’s Java (despite not having the Java brand/TCK)?
Would the community follow?

This is all just conjecture. For all I know Google has zero interest in becoming the Java community leader (they are pretty much the thought leader now). However, wouldn’t it be interesting if they were able to fork Java, bypass the restrictions that Oracle’s copyrights and patents create, and convince a majority of developers and technology management that Google was the future of Java?