Agreed as well, it's a natural tendency for those who don't know what they're doing to try and install beta software. This is a good thing: bugs aren't just found by power users. Unfortunately, it requires a level of sophistication to raise good bug reports that not everyone has.

However, I'd strongly discourage Nokia from starting any new closed system, with a clique of power users beta testing; potentially waving their knowledge and access under the noses of "lesser" users.

Ubuntu manages a well produced system with open betas, and we've already established numerous times that multi-platform end-user desktop OSes are "harder" than IT OS releases for two (well, one supported) hardware configurations. If Canonical can organise this in an open fashion, and deal with the end-user complaints about it "not being ready", why couldn't Nokia?

I suspect one of the key differentiators is managing expectations. Ubuntu has a clear roadmap with predictable releases every six months. There's a nebulous roadmap for Maemo, nothing for IT OS and no predictable IT OS releases.

The glib answer from Nokia (or the fanboys and girls - indeed, it's not just Apple (shock))) is "competitive advantage" or, depending on the phase of the moon, "we're trying harder and you can't expect a big organisation to change overnight" ;-)