That's a pretty broad paintbrush to apply to such a small market to begin with.

What I mean is that the question about Nokia's motivation may not be a good expense of energy finding or proposing a solution for at this point.

Of course the software is not finished and that is the point of Open Source... nothing is ever finished and can always improve.

That is also the problem some are having with Maemo.

Maemo the concept was not finished and Nokia exec's who spoke about Maemo in the past always said so. But Nokia on the whole only spent about as much energy making that known as they would regarding any of their other products. I would imagine sometimes companies allocate resources in part based on the percentage of sales, actual and forecast, at the time a decision to do so is made.

Unfortunately Maemo sales were so small at that time I could also imagine that the amount of individual, line item resources required rarely added up to one man and as a result many of Maemo's departmental functions that would normally have individual department heads were perhaps managed by only one individual or managed by individuals who had other, not related responsibilities.

What Nokia did do right in this regard was spend a very large percentage of whatever promotional resources it had on this "internet" thing you speak of.

Some of it worked well... this forum for example.

The blogger appreciation bit not so well.

On the surface the negative noise only seem to come by way of this forum.
And on the other hand, because it's not natural to byte the hand that feeds you, naturally most of the Blogger's noise was positive.

The problem was/is there wasn't much noise generated by bloggers to begin with and what there was went away rather quickly. They were "phone" bloggers and they moved back to where the phones and their audience were. There were very few of these appreciated bloggers who even got the concept. They all will eventually and some already have... But initially, perhaps not enough "got it" to make much of a positive difference and what positive difference they did make boomeranged back on maemo.org as a negative because of unrealized, high customer expectations

On this forum there was/is always noise. Some of it negative but more of it positive... and much more noise in general.

That will still be the case simply because as long as the N900 works people will use them and as a result, enthusiasts will some times meet serendipitously like we did today.

In the meeting I described in my previous post, we didn't talk long and his N900 was powered down as the party he was with was on the way out when he noticed mine. I was involved in following a threaded e-mail conversation (which always suck when your eating lunch BTW, no matter what device you use or where you connect. ).

However we did ask each other how we liked the N900 and we both responded that it was the best. He asked me what my favorite app was and I of course went off showing him my locally stored pages using MicroB and how they work for me. We exchanged a few questions and answers and if we each had more time, I got the feeling that we two strangers would have talked more Maemo.

How he did things or how I did things would have eventually led us here to maemo.org and this forum.

What was most cool about it all and what I didn't realize until I was back on the road was that after my mini demo I brought back that email right where I left off, finished my meal, went to my vehicle and resumed Sygic Maps, also right where I left off.

Since I'm an RF litterbug and qole, qwerty12, and others provided the means, when the radio fired up it was playing what my Media Player never stopped sending it over FM...

As long as this thing works I'll be using it. Any new device would have to dispense little candies or suttin' for me to abandon the N900 before its time.


***


The problem as I see it is how does Nokia or more specifically their Open Source team support the community that it has developed in Maemo until all are ready to migrate out.

How does each individual Maemo community member reconcile seemingly abandoning this community tree house for another community one?

How does maemo.org provide for their needs if they don't, or until they do if Maemo is no longer a line item on Nokia's annuals?

The best answer for all of the above would be that Nokia would continue to support this community at an appropriate level as long as there is a Nokia, Maemo device being used by anybody, anywhere period. -End of report.

The best news I could hear in this regard would be if Nokia structured MeeGo, Maemo, bananas, pears or whatever else may come along under an its own internal Open Source Initiative division like umbrella or somesuch (and for all I know it may already have). This would allow resources to be allocated and justified by the continued success of this controlled community migration.

Talented community members would not be abandoning a community because I believe that if they do get involved with MeeGo they will be learning much more quickly through everyones MeeGo code and will naturally generalize it. Because of this generalization they will now be more able to overcome or will better understand any obstacles that they couldn't see a way around in Maemo previously.

The thing about initiatives and enthusiasm is that every one that has it and benefits because of it, always seems to want to share "it" with everyone else. And solutions to even old problems always seems to me to be the best things to share.

@ qwerty12: From what we have all seen of your much appreciated efforts so far, I don't think you have to worry to much about your math skills.

Besides, in my experience no one looks closely at the raw numbers if you accompany them with snazzy graphics.
Since the graphics don't "pop" unless the numbers are there, the math kind of takes care of itself.

If in doubt, fake it 'till you make it dude.
Because IMHO you will definitely make it.