As somebody looking forward to publish Maemo apps on the Ovi Store (just got my launchpad approval), I'm completely gutted.

The roadmap has been thrown into chaos; we expected the next device to be a relatively small, "evolutionary" step from Maemo 5, which wouldn't have been too difficult to support. Now it's clear that this won't be the case, as Nokia will push to have MeeGo on it.
The move to .rpm is also a huge step backward, and a further burden on existing application developers to repackage all their stuff. Hell, just repackaging the whole OS will be a *huge* effort, I don't think they really understand what they signed up for when they accepted this "small compromise".

I understand the strategic value of the merge; potentially, it gives developers the chance to build applications that will run on Nokia smartphones as well as Intel netbooks and tablets. But the reality is that all these devices will be very different (one word: touchscreen), so probably it won't be realistic to target them all.

This move makes sense also from a Nokia perspective as they will save money and gain OS developers, but they do risk losing many of the app developers -- the ones they really, really need right now -- who will feel let down yet again.