If a particular phone was ad-supported, then it makes sense that the ad widgets would be proprietary and non-removable, because otherwise who would pay for the hardware? Advertisers aren't going to sign up to a widget that the user can remove, and without advertisers the hardware couldn't be ad-subsidised.

If people don't want an ad-subsidised phone they would buy the non-ad version instead.

But this really isn't worth worrying about at all for many reasons:

First of all, like I said before, leaked proposals usually don't happen. We know that from previous leaks which mostly came to nothing, or were greatly altered. I don't think we should be worrying now about something that might not (and might never) exist.

Secondly, even if there was an ad-subsidised device, it would be released alongside non-ad devices. You can watch an ad-subsidised programme on television, or you can watch it without adverts on DVD. It would probably be the same sort of choice but for hardware.

Thirdly, Q4 2010 is a very very very long time away. Given the current severe economic instability, it's virtually impossible to say whether ad-supported hardware would even be viable by then. The costs of hardware are relatively predictable, but the revenue from advertising is extremely unpredictable, so no one knows whether such an ad-supported plaform would actually pay for itself because no one knows what the ad market will be like in 1.5 years time. Even before the credit crunch the advertising market was going down the toilet, and there is no way that any company would make hard and fast plans about ad-supported hardware so far in advance, especially in the middle of a recession.

Fourthly, the whole point of OSS is that anyone can use the software as they see fit within the terms of the licence. If the licence allows them to add proprietary stuff on top of that (such as ad banners), then it's okay for them to do that. A lot of commercial websites use OSS content systems with proprietary banner code pasted on top of it, how would this be any different?

Fifthly, it's not like Nokia is just sitting there doing nothing, sucking up all the work that other people are doing like some corporate vampire. The Maemo community includes Nokia, so far they've put a lot more resources into Maemo than they have taken out (it's not like the tablets sell in huge numbers). They've dished out hundreds of heavily subsidised tablets to developers, put full-time employees to work on Maemo and recruited more during a recession. There are even some Nokia employees who come onto Talk in their own spare time, and at least one ex-employee who comes to Talk despite not even working for the company any more. There are clearly passionate people working for Nokia's Maemo department, and Maemo wouldn't exist in its current form without Nokia's support (it wouldn't exist without the community's support either of course). Beyond just the legal licence terms, IMHO they have earned the moral right to use Maemo in conjunction with proprietary non-Maemo stuff if they want to, as long as they don't force proprietary stuff on people who don't want it.

I've criticised Nokia for a lot of things when writing on All About Symbian and elsewhere (especially some of their deceptive and restrictive licence terms for purchased content), but I think they've been pretty good to Maemo and stuck with it for years despite Maemo devices not selling too well. Nokia possibly wanting to use Maemo alongside proprietary software in commercial products doesn't negate the work they've done on the platform.