they never claimed the UI would be community developed, did they?

i think it's a reasonable thing to do in this market: build upon a strong, free software platform, but put something on top that sets you apart from the others that use the same platform as a base.



what's much more interesting, though:

imagine there really is a subsidized version that has a place for ads hardwired to the homescreen. what does this mean for the future of alternatives like debian and mer on maemo devices?
wouldn't it mean that they'd need to block any possibility to boot into an alternate OS or else consumers would simply avoid having the ad by using mer instead of maemo?

this would be more annoying than the ad itself, because it might lead to a design decision that affects both the subsidized and the non-subsidized variants.