It means that if you want an App Store which isn't trivial for an advanced user to circumvent. But a micropayment system which was obstructive enough for the average user wouldn't need to harm the openness of the Maemo platform.

There are a lot of people who want to get into mobile development now because of the iPhone - and it's presenting Maemo as an attractive proposition to them which needs to be considered.

I don't think "we don't want that kind of developer" is going to work well for a platform which wants to be mainstream (or more mainstream than it is now).

Can't we have both? :-)

If we had to prioritise, I'd want the open source group too; but historically they've not been very good at pulling in mainstream users - with Firefox being one of the sole exceptions.

And if Nokia are trying to push Maemo more mainstream, they've got more to lose and the platform has higher expectations to live up to. We're actually lucky that number of apps and number of developers are actually metrics the industry is caring about - possibly even more than number of users.

I don't think there's any need for a) Maemo to have DRM or proprietary apps to manage it or b) anything to be forced on people. But a glut of 99 cent fart apps shows that there are a lot of developers for the iPhone - and even if only 1% of them produce something good or useful to someone, that's still a lof of good apps.

Besides, a 99 cent fart app may not appeal to you or I; but it may appeal to the 15 year old at school and act as a gateway into mobile programming. And they might produce something more useful. If nothing else, it's viral enough to drive a few sales based off "look what I can do with my phone".