On my desktop I run a debian system since more than 10 years. Never reinstalled, only smooth upgrades, the hardware aound changed, but the system just evolved. And Debian runs on 12 (twelve) hardware architechtures from Alpha to Sparc. Debian itself had 17 years to mature.

In the handheld the situation is far less fortunate. My zaurus runs Cacko, which is a fine system but no longer maintained. There are alternatives (Angstrom, pdaXrom) which are slow an incomplete. This was the situation 7 years ago.

So what do we have now? OS2006 was discarded for OS2007. OS2007 was discarded for OS2008, which was discarded for Maemo5, which is suprseeded by Mer, but Mer will be discarded for MeeGo.

So is "linux on handhelds" going in circles? Are we building one 80% system after the other without ever even getting a 90% system? Do we blindly believe in the latest announcements rather than bringing one system to perfection?

I wish MeeGo all the best, but I am afraid it wil turn out to be yet another 80% system and will be discarded for something else.