but, seriously...

NITDroid...
Trinity...
Neo?
naaaa, TDE as in KDE 3.5

two examples of rather larger and fairly complex software's that are maintained and developed by a small team of... dedicated ppl

KDE 3.5 dead?
alive and kicking, thanks!
about a year ago the folks working on KDE 4 kept saying KDE 3.5 was a dead end... because it (still) was using qt3; meanwhile Timothy Pearson & two other ppl have ported the KDE 3.5 code to qt4; the only difference that seems to be left between KDE 4 and KDE 3 now is that later is working

is the only reason it is (not or barely or ...........) possible to make phone calls in NITDroid the lack of the complete source code?

so, yes, i think abill's point that with the (complete) source code Maemo could thrive is fairly valid. or is it?
i only know a little about, e.g. nouveau, the open source version of the NVidia drivers; i guess NV may be a little more lenient then NOKIA but still; even though nouveau is not as powerful as the nv drivers (yet), it is possible...

like i pointed out, it is questionable whether NOKIA wants to have a Maemo 5.5 (or whatever) competing with its own
even more so if, maybe, the elected few might actually return to Maemo & adapt it for their N950s and thus for any N9.
that definitely wouldn't do now, would it?

EDIT: shouldn't the holders of a N950 be banned from Maemo.org?
they betrayed Maemo.org as much if not more then NOKIA didn't they?
NOKIA @ least had business reason to turn its back on Maemo (& keep some of the code)

yet again evidence that the administration of Maemo.org is partial and maybe not a valid organ to lead a Maemo / OS200x renouveau?

EDIT': if that is not FIRE IN THE HALL!!!! i don't know what is ¦-)