Intel designs and fabricates their hardware; they write the drivers and choose to open source them. Nokia does not manufacture hardware at the transistor level. They license IP and drivers from other manufacturers and are limited in what they can release to the community. I don't see MeeGo being as open as Moblin is, at least in terms of Nokia handsets. A community backport doesn't hold much promise.

On the debate over rpm/deb, the advantage that .deb holds over .rpm isn't the format, it's the tools that are used to build and manipulate .deb packages. Nothing handles dependencies (especially orphaned dependencies upon removal) as well as aptitude. Given Debian's ARMEL arch and Ubuntu's recent port, it just makes sense not to gut Maemo. It's not a personal vendetta against Red Hat's success.

I don't want to jump to conclusions so soon, but right now MeeGo looks more like a frankenstein creation than a deliberate collaboration.