I recall that article, I linked to it once in the Epic N9 thread, IIRC there's a newer spin-off.
N.B. it is referring to Vanilla MeeGo, not Maemo6x on the N9 (MeeGo-Harmattan).

I think Dan's point is history has shown us that openness hasn't counted for much so far.
Especially if the conviction's not there from the primary backer/s....
The N900's a similar woeful tale of how much better things could've/should've been.

And overall Maemo6x is definitely a regression openness-wise, particularly for the UX layers.*
Maemo5x is widely known to be more pliable, particularly in the UX area.
AEGIS is slowly but surely becoming less of an issue, but closed UX components remain one.

He's generally on the more negative side of the debate, I'm generally on the more positive.
Despite logic dictating I shouldn't be "sometimes", I remain hopeful that things can evolve.

*At the very least it maintains the status-quo...
If the transition to real meego was allowed to complete (it hardly got started) things would've been different.