I just bought Nokia 770 mainly for E-Book reading. Since I use Linux and developing on it for years I'm confused beause of the splitted support of the 770 in respect of the N800.
I would understand if applications beyond the hardware limits of the 770 cannot be released for it. For example an application for the N800 camera.

But what I cannot understand why there is a complete OS fork.

Even for the developpers, what makes porting apps harder. Why should I write an application if it will not run a year later after the OS update ?
This is a strategy like buying Windows Vista for getting DirectX 10 .
It can be done better. See for example Cacko ROM for Zaurus
http://my-zaurus.narod.ru/cacko.html

I have never seen this in the Linux/GNU community. I also hope that I'm wrong with my first impression.

Modulok: Your first impression isn't wrong, at least not entirely. While Nokia has been pretty forthcoming so far as hardware spec and the intricacies of the OS (www.maemo.org), complete source for Maemo is not available. Ari Jaaksi (http://jaaksi.blogspot.com/) is heading it, and has done his best to explain why but essentially it boils down to licensed components such as Opera that are hindering them. Many of us here don't understand why they don't fork off a plain version with none of the proprietary components but given the amount of paid work (on the side of their developers) I would suppose it doesn't make good business sense. (I smirked as I wrote that).

The differences between the 770 and 800 extend beyond the webcam, while compatible in many ways, internally they're two different beasts. I'm still reeling from a CDN$550 device being forced into obsolescence a mere year and change after I bought it... especially before it's full potential was ever realized.

The only way the community will have a great measure of control is if someone can get a distro like ARMED Slack working on it. Good luck.

I know the core problems about a free Linux on the 770/N800 are drivers for the hardware components like the touch screen e.t.c.
The existing proprietary drivers can be reused for a fork (or not ?) until there are open drivers.
Applications like Opera can be replaced by OS like Minimo.
I think we have at least a starting point, better than many Windows based PDAs.

Another nice example for good community support is the SIMpad.

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/SIMpad
http://opensimpad.org/index.php/Main_Page

They didn't even had proprietary drivers for Linux.

I guess in one or two years we gen get cheap Nokia N800 after they release a new deivce.
Another possibility would be that there will not be a new device because no one will develop for free for a device with no future.

Nevertheless I have to admit that the developer did a good job with the Nokia 770, paid or not

I guess nokia didn't see it coming. That killing the 770 means the end of Internet Tablet.

TBH, I think we were lucky to have the amount of support we did for the 770. No, it wasn't perfect, but at least there were a number of upgrades and enhancements.

It's still early days. Watch what happens with OS 2007 on 770. Worst case, it's useless and the community can step in and start producing upgrades for people.

However, if everyone's jumped ship and no-one's using the 770 anymore, no-one'll bother helping produce a third party OS using the closed source components.

Remember, it's only been a month or so since the N800 was released at CES and there've already been a 770 bug fix upgrade and the first release of OS 2007 on 770.

The strange thing is, right now the N800 has more power, memory and storage, and a more recent browser/flash combo, but still does little that the 770 can't do. The webcam is still mostly useless, and most heavyweight apps still support both platforms (MaemoMapper, Canola, Gizmo...). From the sound of these forums the latest version of OS2006 is more stable than the N800's current OS2007, and video works better on the 770. Oh, and of course, still no cover... :-)

Stand is cool though.

Feh.

Yup, typical British humour that :-)