Across several threads, and across several years, this community and others has talked about this issue of carrier involvement on the side of mobile devices. There's a positive and negative side to these carriers, but I want to concentrate on the Maemo questions:

• Nokia is already a known commodity to carriers, does Maemo help or hurt their perception here?
• Maemo is currently made up of groups of people and small companies that are usually contrary to some carrier goals; how does the introduction of Maemo 5 change that, if at all?
• Is it possible for carriers to not only embrace the kind of open-network development and use that this commnity aspires to, while guarantering a compariable level of quality of service, while keeping some scheme of making a profit (even if the profit doesn't look like current numbers)?

Like many of you, I'm in favor of getting carriers out of my wireless life. And at the same time, I appreciate the kinds of pipes they maintain so that I can have a wireless life that's financially and ethically attainable.

What I don't hear in most of our discussion is how Maemo could be of value to carriers. Clearly, they've shown enough of a value to Nokia by being included as part of the Maemo 5 experience (the addition of a SIM card and WCDMA technolgies). What do we offer them?

EDIT: yes, this is based on this post, and just some general observations of everything here from perceptions, to politics, to app suggestions, to use-case conversations.