One of the recurring themes I keep seeing here is how "open" maemo is. And how quite a few people wish it were more open. Something along the lines of: I'd never get an iphone because it's locked down.... Yet here we are discussing asking people to shut down their repositories and only use the "approved" repository. Even though there are perhaps minimal hoops to jump through, isn't this still a form of locking down the platform? The very thing that so many people are against?

Yes, there are some very valid arguments for this, but I,think it's unreeasonable to think that a user would blindly install all 60 or whatever repositories. Most likely, a new user will be timid about exploring outside the default repositories unless they really need to. Likely it will be one at a time after that as they see things they want to try.

By making it harder to install things off the beaten path, less users will be willing to test them. In the end, fewer programs.