chlettn is correct. Nokia will continue selling millions of cheap little phones while transtioning to the Next Big Thing. Anything less would certainly be a disservice to stockholders (and I'm one!). Serious investors understand this. That's why Nokia's stock didn't tank after the major re-organization last year, and why it continues to hold steady during rough economic times.

I don't know about desirable ... I'm an old BSD fan myself (and a Nextstep/Openstep/OSX fan at that)... but, that said, there's more people pushing for Linux on phones than BSD. Motorola is already there in production. Trolltech had it on a dev. platform. Google is soon to follow into production, along with OpenMoko.

I think it's a coin toss, and Nokia already has some momentum built up toward Linux (maemo and trolltech teams). I think that's the direction the wind will blow.

As I posted in the engadget thread:

I want to see a T-Mobile-USA WCDMA/UMTS enabled E71 ... running Maemo with Android extensions, or Android itself (I'd be happy with just Maemo though). Gimme that, and I'll be quite happy. Use the E71 for voice, SMS/MMS, PIM (since Nokia thinks that's where PIM software belongs, on the phone, not the NIT), basic note taking, maybe IM & email & web, and as a tethering point ... and then pull out my N810, or maybe an UMPC, for things that require a bit more screen space (VNC, extensive note taking, maybe IM, maybe email, maybe web, etc.).

And, while I'm wishing: it'd be nice if it had 2 SIM card slots. (1 for T-Mobile "Total Internet" and "Unlimited Domestic messaging" ... and 1 for T-Mobile Pay-Per-Day prepaid, since I don't think you can mix them on one SIM card account :-} )

And, it'd be nice if there was one E71 instead of three of them (1 for Europe/Asia, 1 for AT&T, 1 for T-Mobile-USA). It'd be nice to have one Maemo+Android running E71 that did all 3 WCDMA bands, with 2 SIM cards. But that's REALLY wishing.

Yes, but neither of these companies is going to provide Nokia with that version of Linux

Yes, Nokia can provide QT library for Symbian, running inside a lump of glue. No, having QT bindings will not automatically give you cellular stack on Linux. QT is a user interface library, not a communication stack.

I would NOT buy a Linux phone from Nokia. I'd buy a Symbian because I'd expect closed stuff. Or an OpenMoko.

But, I bet you anything, that the Nokia Linux phones will use BB5 which will mean closed source stuff. Just like the N8*0 now, which uses BB5.

It's funny. When I arrived here, I wasn't really so bothered about Open Source but now, seeing what happens when companies close their source off, I am very bothered about open source. (but I will use commercial stuff over open source tbh)

@Qwerty12 - I know what you mean :P Once you go open-source you never go back. It sticks in your head to the point where you're suprised when you can't mod source code :P

I'm fine with a closed source cell phone though. All I require from my phone is good call quality and fast data servce over bluetooth. Other than that, all my mobile functionality is achieved through my N810. But for the sake of the NITs I hope Nokia moves to linux quickly, which should in theory make for better support for our tablet

BTW, Openmoko is switching to E17 and Qtopia...

http://osnews.com/story/19764/OpenMo...rom-GTK+-to-Qt

E17 i can understand but why the radical change to Qtopia?

'Cause let us be frank: GTK sucks as a framework. QT has its own problems (such as ABI that changes with every new version), but at least it uses C++ to manage complexity. GTK developers appear to be so averse to C++, that they have made a whole new language that looks vaguely like C++ but isn't:

http://live.gnome.org/Vala/FAQ

I'm aware of Vala, i also have better opinion of it than of C++, but i hadn't too much crossing points with the latter anyway.