One good thing is that even if Nokia doesn't provide an N8x0 OS based on Maemo 5, some of the changes Nokia's making will make it easier to provide a mostly or completely open replacement OS for the old ones, ideally matching library versions to Maemo 5 to allow many Elephanta apps to run. The WLAN driver release is hugely major in this regard; as for other stuff, the X server may be a bit troublesome in bringing a full Maemo 5, as the video chain is expected to be completely different on the N9xx, but kdrive works, and some such hybrid seems very possible now.

A major question is whether such an OS should be Maemo based or Debian based, but that doesn't matter near as much as that it is more possible now.