As far as I understand there are 2 installable images of n900 MeeGo.

(1) The closed image - (includes BME, wifi & bluetooth firmware)

(2) The open image - does not include the above components.

The open image can be installed on the n900 but you may damage the device due to the lack of battery management (no BME).

But you can install the open image on a virtual device and use it as a development environment.

The only realistic decision is to install the closed image to the n900.

The open image can be freely distributed by the closed image cannot?

I'm fine with that.

However if I wanted to create a custom image for the n900 I can do that but I would have to exclude the closed components.

Are the components seperate enough so I can build a custom image on the n900 and install the closed components too?

Will these components ever be "open source". I understand that there may be patent, third-party license and/or distribution issues too. But until these components are open-source then I don't think the MeeGo platform (as regads to the n900) can be considered open-source.

Am I just being really "picky" about this. I'm not an open-source zealot but I would feel a lot better if these components were "freely" available. I would even settle for unrestricted re-distributable firmware blobs and battery-manger binary.

I've had my fingers burnt before with stuff like this (ATI drivers now legacy - no longer work with newer versions of Xorg)