OK, call me a curmudgeon, but where does this optimism arise from with regard to software development for the N900 and future Maemo devices? If it's going to be so great in the future, why wasn't it in the past? I mean, not a single polished PIM for maemo, even though it's been four years since the N770 came out? That's a pretty basic app for the consumer. No good, bug-free word processor? And you can make fun of the stupid iPhone apps, but plenty of them are useful and beautifully executed, like the ones that find the movies near you and link them to IMDB reviews. By comparison, very few polished consumer-oriented special-purpose apps have been developed for Maemo over the past four years.

FOSS developers don't have the financial incentive to make apps for the mainstream consumer, though that clearly doesn't stop all such development, e.g., GPodder or FBReader. I have a sort of political-utopian orientation that leads me to root for (US English slang for "support" and "cheer for") open source and to despise monopolies, but, judging from the past, I don't see reason to expect major success in the future.

I'd gladly be wrong. Tell me why I am.