I start with this image. Then point out that not every problem churned out by the ProblemFactory ...

I start with this image.



Then point out that not every problem churned out by the ProblemFactory is a technical problem.



Google's technical problem was that it was distributing Android across a potentially huge heterogeneous hardware base, but wanted everyone to be able to get apps, so it went with Java. But not in the way Java's owners approved of.



I've gone Google. My phone is Google. My browser is Google. My email is Google. My office suite is Google. My social networking site is (among other things) Google. My [insert thing here] is likely Google. I don't have a GoogleTV (yet). Last but certainly not least, my search is Google. I'm not nearly as invested in Oracle: I use MySQL because it is everywhere, but a) all of MySQL left to fork to MariaDB and b) Oracle doesn't seem to be growing what they have. My workplace has Sun gear from before the purchase and runs SunOS on it, but all our newer servers are Linux. And I only write Java when forced, which thankfully has been over a decade, with the exception of getting to HelloWorld on an Android app.



But the truth of the issue might run counter to my favorites, and I'm for that truth. But you must admit that dealing with Java in Android has put the ProblemFactory in high gear.



My friend +Patrick Fitzgerald suggests that it might be better if Google just bought a controlling interest in Oracle, and that Oracle's suit is a SCO-like search for relevance. I like both, even if I can't necessarily agree. I think that just because you stop saying "Don't Be Evil", that's any reason to lock yourself in your lair with your white Persian cat, your phalanx of lawyers and your exotic bodyguard with a tattoo on her face, while clothing all your minions in face-obscuring identical body armor.



(I'm getting an image of an angel in a black turtleneck saying "Why do you think we kept with Objective C?")



He suggests that the likely outcome is that Oracle gets a chunk out of the sale of every future sale of an Android-brand "Magical Internet Pants Rectangle" (tm). And I think we can agree that this is a problem.

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