So what’s cool about Maemo (compared to other PhoneGap platforms)?
Shortly: The openess of Maemo platforms enables developer innovation never seen before. There are zero artificial limitations chaining your imagination.

■No code signing whatsoever required
■No approval process to get your application distributed
■Very robust development tools and development environment. Hey, it’s Linux! The phone ships with X terminal built in.
■You have root access to the device if needed
■QWebView WebKit control which itself is open source – you can recompile from scratch and stick in the needed features
■The phone itself is rock solid. It beats iPhone 100-0.
■Maemo has very active open source community. You actually might get help when stuck, unlike with NDAs and other madness from some other vendors.


So what’s cool about PhoneGap (compared to other mobile application technologies)?

■Use low entry level HTML, CSS and Javascript technologies – even PHp coder can build his/her own mobile application! This is the most cost effective way to develop non-CPU-intensive applications.
■PhoneGap has the widest mobile platform support – the best medicine against fragmented mobile application markets
■You can always break out from the sandbox and use the native capabilities of the phone. This is something you cannot do with Flash Lite or Java ME.
■Very active community
■WebKit rendering engine enables CSS3 goodies and much more
■Easily convert your existing mobile site to an application

Originally Posted by moo

This should bring the barrier of mobile application development even lower - people with just web development skills can create their own mobile apps.