You have no idea how much that frustrates me as well.

Right, so, going all the way back. Mer started as a research project (Mer is Maemo Reconstructed afterall) between friends. We were not happy with the way things were in Maemo and didn't see their model of development and the platform to succeed if things were not changed. Things did change - very similar to our original ideas, in MeeGo, finally. We began to reconstruct Maemo from bottom up - taking the open source pieces and putting them back together in an interesting constellation.

To that respect, we started an iterative process, let's see how far we get if we churn at the problem. Involve more people, churn further at the problem. Now, a lot of work, discoveries and process was developed in this - much which is actually reused in MeeGo or exists in some form now.

The problem was however that the goal post kept moving. This is the same problem for instance GNOME suffers - the goal post of being a 'Windows alternative' keeps on moving as well - ie, what users want. Without day to day collaboration in a platform, we can never reach eachother. That part is too, changed now, in MeeGo. Tracking a mostly closed source distribution is darned hard.

Now, the things that really screwed up things and where we made bad choices:

A research project taking on the task as a Fremantle backport - there was noone else to do it. We had some goals with Mer and this did not always agree with the backport idea and staying close to Fremantle. Things we -should- have done, which I was trying to recitify with Mer^2:

* Ask Nokia to maintain a ARMv6+VFP build of Fremantle alongside the ARMv7 one from early on.
* Activate GTK+ developers in Fremantle alpha to make a look-alike of Fremantle in the old hildon desktop. People have made themes to this regard now, so it was possible.
* In the development process, engage Nokia very early on to get a redistributable binaries for Nokia devices. In that regard, we were perceiving Nokia as slightly more evil than they actually were. Imagine our shock meeting Quim in May in Copenhagen and discovering that they were actually rather relaxed about Nokia binaries for Nokia devices, when we had assumed there was a huge legal framework needed to get things accomplished.

We were operating with a huge bunch of enthusiasm and we developed a lot of things to support a open platform like Mer. Now, this didn't always accomplish the goal of a backport.. it was a hope to keep things maintained than just a backport. That your devices wouldn't go out of fashion. MeeGo's a way to do this, still - and our methods are being used there.

Another thing was the announcement that Nokia was switching to Qt as their main toolkit. It meant that most of our work on GTK+ tools and desktop was well, mostly wasted.

We kept on churning, actually gaining some degree of functionality and usage - except that we couldn't possibly match Fremantle development and functionality with the people we had. And that we didn't know how Fremantle would look like in the end. With Fremantle release, we were not there yet either. And most of the things people wanted, was closed. And we couldn't easily integrate due to previous mistakes.

Now, on to the summit: 300 N900s to the attendants. Most of them the core of N8x0 developers. Bam. Attention to N8x0 dropped like a ball. Who needs N8x0 when we have a shiny new toy? For the rest, I tried to finish up things, but the influx of new contributions had dropped. Most contributions actually came from other device communities.

And then we get to where MeeGo is announced. Mer started like a research project and the experience we gained helps us to be first class participants with skill and merit in this project. Did I waste a year of my own free time and people's time? No, because we learnt things and produced a lot of know-how and tools. How a open mobile OS could be like. And how to tame the N8x0 hardware wise, which we can now use in the MeeGo N8x0 hardware adaptation. We got -really good- at porting to devices.

So, post-mortem of Mer. It's dead. Has no future. But our ideals, ideas, skills and experience still lives on. And has enabled us to be professionals in our own regard in mobile OS'es. Would we have been this without Mer with the situation of OSes on N8x0 before we came to town?

I don't think so. It's time to look forward now. I don't personally use my N8x0 anymore except for random tasks. Why do I still contribute to it and want to? Because I like the device and I know how to do things that others might find worthwhile.