This is a well thought out response to all the jitter and worrying that is going on out there since N900 just was released not long ago and now the thought of being terminated after spending over 500 bucks for it is really worrying many. Thanks for providing us with some insight of what the future looks like.

I have been a Nokia/Blackberry fan for many years. Nokia's have come a long way and the N900 is like the flagship with the integration of telephony. They will not kill it off that easy because it rivals a lot of things in the market. Its the new boom we needed in a cellphone. We will begin seeing some awesome things come from the community and Nokia in a joint effort to stay on top of marketshare and bring the company back into the spotlight and hopefully we will be there to see it all go down.

Worry: What a powerful emotion. But after the initial shock wears off, what a useless emotion. Just ask that dear you just hit. Or just ask that dude who suggested we stop filing bugs. Inaction worked for Gandhi because he represented the oppressed. Nokia is trying to do anything but. We're free men and women in a free software environment, idleness is how things die. Why some of you are here is beyond me, but if you're going to stay, get your emotions in check. And learn how to read.

Still, all this is speculation keepsie. You have no roadmap, no timeline, and very little concrete information to go on. How will it actually work? Will someone have to take packages like foo.rpm, turn them into a foo.deb, host them in some repo (public or private?), and rely on community support? If so, I think Debian Mobile might be a better option since they already have the infrastructure, security, and expertise to do something like this.

Some people from the Maemo community have already moved on and want to to start such a Debian Mobile project, it might be an excellent way to support the N900.

Nokia MeeGo Announcment confrence at Once Bercalona
in according to nokia the nokia n900 will be get it

about march-june 2nd quarter 2010

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SNafLSS4JQ

Great post, based on solid arguments, thanks!!

Exactly what I am worried about is the drivers and close applications support for the N900. Ovi Maps is an example of one technology that Nokia is betting on and is set to be completed (turn-by-turn navigation) on Harmattan only. Even if Meego base OS source is completely open every device maker will have customizations and applications to differentiate itself from competitors.

From my point of view Nokia is marketing N900 as a pocket computer but supporting it like a standard phone. Computer users expect it to be upgradable with supplier support, and those who bought it as a mobile expect at least the same level of features Symbian has now (Ovi Maps, Ovi Suite and a lot of other simple phone features that seems "crude" now)

I'm not sure where RPM vs DEB debate came in all this. There is a problem with Nokia claiming M6 is a MeeGo instance I am wondering a bit about from a technical point of view. On packaging level it hardly isn't, but on API/ABI level it might be (Qt libs). I'm pro-Dual packaging as we need to support both M6 and MeeGo.

I might not have a roadmap, but the questions I end up asking is relevant no matter what they plan. The transformation from Nokia as a OS vendor to a hardware vendor amongst many others and their commitment. The belief in the ability of a community to produce a production mobile OS. The ability to code for M5, M6 -and- MeeGo using Qt. Will Nokia use the cross-platform APIs to bring their own services and differentiation to not-so-new devices.

Instead of forking over a packaging change, I choose participation and collaboration as I like the big picture and I understand the reasoning. Even though I don't know a shred of .spec. I talk to the people involved, the community guys, the developers - they see our point of view on many things and we try to seek out a compromise - and we're creating a common community together.

Instead of ".rpm is a dealbreaker" and splitting, duplicating efforts for no good reason.

And I'm helping those out as well (it's my duty and my job), even though I don't agree with forking over a packaging choice that makes a lot of sense from organisational and toolset point of view. I don't agree with Gentoo or for that sakes raw Debian on N8x0 either, but I try to work with them as well.

History will repeat itself. Someone here claimed N8x0 bugs on Maemo 4.0 will be fixed in 5.0; and then N810 is not supported in 5.0.

I own more than one N810s and more than one N800s. But I don't have a single N900. I skip the N900 because Nokia did not have N8x0 supported in 5.0.

I think 6.0 won't support N900 as 5.0 did not support N8x0.

It is also the curse of having a OS vendor and HW vendor in one. This is what is getting seperated in MeeGo and what I've petitioned for, for a long time in Mer.

Could you specify the time during the video when they directly say this? I watched the entire thing and the only thing I heard them say was that QT applications developed on the n900 would be "forward compatible" with future devices.

I'm discouraged by people complaining about the length of this... but that's a societal rant for another time and place.

What I'm encouraged by is the message, and the number of Thanks by people with no problem reading it through.