I'm reluctant to jump into this thread, but here goes! (Incidentally, I would prefer if it was called something like "closed-source versus open-source idealogy" or something, as upon first entering the thread I thought it would be the long-awaited list of which packages in Maemo 5 are open and which are closed). Anyway:

The thing that I find disappointing is that it seems that Nokia are scared to open the source for their packages (e.g. the media player front end) by the threat of competitors stealing them. However, what about the benefit of the community, and indeed other companies, being able to improve the packages? Brainstorming and submitting bug reports is all very well, but theoretically with the source available, people can improve the packages themselves, e.g. add portrait mode support and all the rest of it? Nokia can then ship the improved packages, ship more hardware, and make more money.

I'm not suggesting that they don't employ their own people to work on the packages, I'm just saying that by open-sourcing them, they can get the benefits of other programmers working on the packages without having to pay them.