"[QUOTE=jnwi;635326]This, along with "if you don't like it, buy an iPhone" is repeated here often. But the fact is we should all care - a lot.

Market share will directly impact future third party services that may not otherwise be available to us, scale will enable Nokia to polish the devices we want to buy, and profitability is the only thing that can convince Nokia to continue on this path."


I am not a fanboy nor a tech geek. The reason I updated (as basic user) from a basic cellphone to the N900 is the potential of open source that strikes me. The shift from 'protected development' and ready-made must-have-trash-soon-products to 'open source development' and products, that are designed to involve people with developing skills as well as users in the use and improvement of modifiable communication-tools of high quality, that shift goes far beyond the presentation of a new must-have. It is a new kind of product, that stands for sustainability. To me this is nothing less, than turning intelligence from Stand-By to On. With a huge 'marked-player' like Nokia, it really seemed to me like glimpses of a new century coming through. It still does.

But something is missing and it made me feel uneasy from the very start: Sustainability and big business (the way it used to work by over-production and over-waste) are two different pairs of shoes. So who will sustain Nokia?
Not iPhone is killing the N900. The logic of an obsolete marked-model, where iPhone is king, discredits Nokia's open source-project. It is NOT about apps or usability, it is about making money.

iPhone is a 'ready-made'. It is a brilliant recollection of the state of art so far, which is the past at its release, only that this past has been a secret so far and therefore looks like the future to users. That's how 'latest-greatests work'. They look 'old' by tomorrow and the day after tomorrow you got to have the next one already waiting for you.

The N900 is an 'intelligent tool', with the option future development on the very device. It learns in time. Upgrade by upgrade. It is 'alive'. Communities in an open dialogue are involved with development, not just one manufacturer, who keeps the recipe a secret for the next generation of devices. It is a tool made for a marked we need (less production, less waste, more creativity by a larger scale of developers). But this marked does not exist in 'big business', which therefore does not want open source. It wants secret recipes that regularly sell millions of 'ready-mades'.

Basically the answer to what is to do is very simple. If shareholders are walking out of Nokia, users and developers together should walk in. If there are people in the community, and I guess there are, who could handle this, why not create some User/Maemo/Meego/etc.-shareholder-foundation to get into Nokia?

Open source is much more than a technical term. A marked-player (Nokia or any other!) who opens up for open source, will not be able to continue living from selling devices just the way it used to be. Money is vital for all of us and any breakthrough of open source on the market must include some more creative thoughts from open source about sustainability in the stream of cash.