maemo is not a FOSS project. It's is a commercial product with a number of FOSS elements interwoven. Nokia handing out a copy of third party binaries under EULA to people who purchased an N900 does not make it FOSS. They didn't just hand it all out to anyone wanting to run this on their ARM device. If all it took were this action to make something FOSS then MSOffice can be consider FOSS, as it's being "handed out" to those buying MS hardware, like the Surface. Windows8 is FOSS for that matter too, right? You can download drivers and updates for free off their site... all FOSS.

Keeping the lights on for one. The servers and software running on them were donated by Nokia to HiFo to carry on the community. Their continued operation, without interference from Nokia, has been contingent on closing on-going business with them. Do you honestly think that if that business is not resolved before HiFo or Nokia "goes away" that Nokia itself won't send a C&D to IPHH within a week? MS wouldn't even need to be involved...

FWIW: MS did not "buy" Nokia. It bought certain IP and divisions of Nokia. Nokia, as a company, is not going away. And even if it's not in the field they own any more, they will go after anything that could tarnish their brand. (And if the IP is part of what MS bought, they'd go after this in a heartbeat.)

Actually, no. Many of the closed source binaries in maemo are actually pass-throughs. Meaning that at least part of them belongs to a 3rd party. Consider the flash plugin, for example. If Adobe found there was a version being distributed from a large static site do you think they would ignore it? Would Nokia have to even be involved?

But Nokia does care. The fact that they're taking as long as they are on this is because of the way things like copyright and trademark work. In some countries if you don't enforce your trademark, you can lose it. Same with copyright. And again, this isn't just something they own. There are lots of 3rd party bits thrown into the mix, which opens up potential legal issues for them. Ignoring that is not something they're likely to do.

At a minimum companies try to hold anything they can if they think it could make them money down the road. If that means taking it to the grave with them, it's really no loss to them. There are lots of dead OSs, tools, gadgets and programs already in that bucket to prove this. Add the potential liability of 3rd party contracts to the mix, and even without MS involvement I could see Nokia holding maemo on it's way to the grave. (Besides, who wouldn't prefer maemo running as an interface on their web-enabled TV instead of WebOS?)