Over the weekend the internets were buzzing with the rumor that Amazon’s Kindle — currently getting schwarped by booming sales of color devices like Barnes & Noble’s Nook and, particularly, Apple’s iPad — was going from a Linux operating system to join forces (sort of) with Google by switching to Android.

It all kicked off on Friday in a New York Times report by Nick Bilton:

Although Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s chief executive, has said in the past that a color Kindle is “multiple years” away, new job listings on the Lab 126 Web site, the division of Amazon that makes the Kindle, show that the company is building up its team of Android developers, which might involve developing software for a color screen.

At least five new jobs were added in the last week alone seeking developers with Android programming experience.

At Tabletcrunch.com, Robert Holland saw the job listings and posted that “my guess is that Amazon is thinking about releasing an Android tablet that will be preloaded with the Kindle and more than likely an Amazon store application – the best of both worlds running directly on an Amazon Android tablet.” Passing along the rumor, James Deruvo takes a strange swipe at B&N in his excitement: “… there’s plenty of attraction to having the Android platform. There is a Kindle App and users will buy more apps along with books with an Android Kindle. And coupling it with Kindle’s free lifetime 3G to buy said books and apps is really attractive. And if Amazon can syphon off users wanting a tablet and prevent them from buying from BN.Com, so much the better.”

In any event, the complaints came quickly. “The Kindle’s battery life is something of legend and we’d hate to see Android come on board and drain those resources a bit more quickly than what the Kindle has produced in the past but time will definitely tell,” wrote Nate Rios in a post on Everythingandroid.com. And on Phonedog Evan Selleck headlined his comment, “Amazon should keep Android out of the Kindle.”

Even Bilton, in his Times report, noted, “It’s still up for debate whether an Android Kindle would be good for Amazon, or better for Google. With tablets becoming a competition over the number of apps available for the platform, Amazon would have a lot of catching up to do if the company decided to introduce an entirely new tablet operating system.”

Of course, all the rumors could be wrong. Jeff Bezos could simply be hiring brainiacs to work on his spaceship. On the other hand, it’s hard not to imagine him spluttering at the fact that others are getting a piece — and a big one — of a market that he believes belongs to him alone. After all, as we recently reported, the other big rumor circulating about Amazon recently is that the company is so set on total domination of the market that it’s supposedly thinking of making Kindles not only Android, but free.