The way things are looking, Plasma will indeed be building on top of a Mer core, as CE (and Cordia) are doing.

If all that pans out, users will be able to install Plasma/CE/Cordia on their devices [with Mer running under the hood, as an implementation detail]

I personally do certainly see our goals (and more specifically, that of CE's) aligning with that of maemo.org, that is, a hackable free software stack usable on Nokia's devices.

We're not entirely bound within that space, though, so I don't think it's completely appropriate to just jump in and make ourselves at home: we aren't limiting ourselves to just the Nokia devices, and a lot of the software we're talking about differs.

In terms of infrastructure, etc, a lot of details still need to be worked out (i.e. how exactly Mer's repositories are going to be shared, etc), but currently things are looking like they can be managed quite well on a shoestring budget and ported around pretty easily, so I don't expect we have any needs (if any) - but thanks for the offer, it's nice to know we have alternatives if need be.