A good thing to know both the advantages as well as the disadvantages of a product you're going to buy. It will have disadvantages like any product has. Those who believe the product they're going to buy is flawless and perfect are living in a pink cloud akin to falling in love.

Yeah, and none of them is a viable alternative for me.

Why not? Everything Will Be Okay In The End. If It's Not Okay, It's Not The End.

you think Harmattan which is Maemo 6.0 won't happen? You think the 5 step plan is bullocks? If Maemo would discontinue the whole department would close. People would be fired. Some would be transfered. Do you see that happening? Read on...

Yes, but Nokia also shows they are interested. They have contributed source code, including some closed source such as drivers. They bought TrollTech for example, and are investing in Qt for both Maemo and Symbian. They sponsor Maemo related events. They're developing a product for profit. Its a big sum of + and -. If N900 would turn out to be a complete fail, maybe Maemo would come to an end. But as it is, it seems to create quite some attraction, and not only from open source or Linux enthusiasts. Entirely the point of step 4/5!

My E71 uses SyncML?

Approx one month. According to current data the product is delayed for a minimum of 9 days (assuming 31 October and 9 November) and a maximum of 61 days (assuming 1 October and 31 November). It has to be noted both are extremes (hence 'min' and 'max').

Hardware or software, we don't know. Officially due to 'feedback from 300+ developers'.

Why not? Who cares? Buy unbranded without simlock, or get the thing off when you're legally to do so.

Actually, they're hiring, and I'm pretty sure you can see an increase of employees in Maemo dept.

Ofcourse it needs some cornering of rough edges. In practice, any new device does. What defines a lot of work is up for debate. However, one of the reasons the product is delayed is to lower the initial complaints, the initial reception.

There are methods to get paid too, and if you don't like to work for free don't do it. However, many here contribute while not getting paid.

Clearly, you're much more negative about the product then me. I find your post one-sided not taking into account several important factors, partly unrealistic, and overly negative not taking into account positive factors. As topic starter you could have made a more balanced first post for starting a discussion, but you hardly mentioned any positive aspects, while most of what I wrote is pretty widely available information and known among the community. Although your post is also slightly informative such pertains to past and other Nokia departments, and does not take recent work of Maemo development team into account.

Because all the other options are worse. This platform has the most potency. A Linux kernel with embedded userland, POSIX compliant stack, X11, and GTK/Qt, and tons of other userspace compatible with either open standards, FRAND standards, or Linux standards.

And I'm not gonna say why competitors are worse. Because then it will become a compare thread. Which is OK to do, but we have tons of those. We also have tons of threads where people outline why N900 is best for them. You can read those and decide. Or make yet another. In the end, YMMV, you pick what is best for you.