• NOKIA vs community
  • the council
    it was already pointed out a few times, the members of the council are just guys like you & me; they most likely have a N900 or one of its predecessors, they have invested time mostly into improving one or several versions of OS200x and when the council was started, well, they stepped forward.
    they are not paid for their time, i don't think they have any advantage from it and, worst of all...
  • the community
    even if you take the forums out of the equation, leading an open source project is anything but a walk in the park
    like you pointed out, ppl come & go as they please, with nothing but their commitment to depend upon. i'm not saying they are (all) web junkies, most are serious, dedicated and hard working ppl who do this as a hobby, too, and have a great deal of satisfaction just by seeing it work & maybe getting an e-mail from a happy user every now and then
    still, considering the rather confused situation about
  • NOKIA's commitment
    even highly dedicated ppl may come to doubt.
    if on top of that they hit a snag (yes, like unable to access some critical closed source code...), they may well leave
    and the more qualified a dev is, the more likely s/he is to work on something around that, right?
    even though i came to that conclusion a few wks ago on the council thread, i wonder in how far NOKIA abandoned Maemo when they started with MeeGo
    they couldn't invest in the future of Maemo and MeeGo @ the same time, that would have been totally nuts (even though the final outcome, MeeGo/Harmattan isn't exactly clear cut in that respect, now, is it?)
    but even if they went MeeGo for future devices, it doesn't mean they don't support Maemo for legacy ones any more. obviously they have been paying the bills since, haven't they? and are committed to do so until next year...
• Maemo vs. MeeGo
  • N950
    it's a developer device, really not consumer grade by NOKIA's standard. that a developer desperate to get a new phone uses it as such none the less, well, that's the person's issue. set with an even more dead-end device then us with the N900, because even though NOKIA is not providing firmwares any more, it is still in its best interest, even for its wp future, to be a trustworthy actor that supports (even via via) its products for several years, no?
    the N950 is never going to get any kind of upgrade which soever. and once the N9 comes out, that will become the developer device and the N950 will be left as a unsupported piece of technological junk
  • N900 vs N9
    is the N9 the N900's successor? obviously not.
    will be a possible contender for the apple? maybe
    i have a couple news alert around all that & there seems to be a real buzz about the possibility. what will be, will be, right?
  • Maemo vs. MeeGo
    like i said before, one is the past, the other the future.
    they may still coexist in the present for some time, no?

you can see how nuts i am, hoping anyone is going to read all that ¦-)))))))))))))))
le'me know how far you got, okay

EDIT: in a figure of speech, of course; we are both outcasts on TMO whereas the council members are cherished by the community.
i'm sure if either of us where to apply for the next council, there'd suddenly be dozen if not hundreds of candidates ¦-))))))))))))

EDIT': had a look @ the Development Environment Downloads and noticed that a new flasher for both N9 & N950 is available; looks like N950 users will be able to use the same firmwares as N9 customers