*Sigh* If we had hardware-upgradeable phones we wouldn't have to grovel for blackmarket N950s. (Speaking of, if anyone's selling and everyone else in line is satisfied/passing, I'm just going to put it out there that I wouldn't be against sending some agreed upon sum of money if you were to 'lose' your N950 inside a package addressed to me.)

But in the grander scheme of things - seriously, upgrade-able phone/tablet hardware? Anyone with me? With me as in start-up-a-cell-phone-hardware-manufacturer-with-me-in-the-next-couple-of-years with me, which would do the above and ideally conform somewhat well to this community's standards of open development and the like? We probably would have to go with MeeGo or some other Linux derivative for the OS if it ever was done, but nothing says we can't unofficially support Maemo ports if enough of the Maemo binary blobs are reverse-engineered....

Of course, I've written on the sheer unrealistic-ness of scattered community members making a cellphone manufacturing company themselves, especially in the BS shitstorm of patent system lawsuits, on top of the actual costs of hardware development (though I do genuinely believe the software development can be strongly community-sourced, with only a handful of paid staff for some extra work/expertise where volunteer efforts or direction is lacking), but the idea has been bouncing around in my head for like half a year now, and while it's not a short-term achievable goal, I do think it's doable, would just require some very committed people, as well as the nasty affair of fishing for investors and/or business loans and/or putting up our own money on the line.