Says it all.

The wave of anxiety is coming from those of us who've had experience with what this particular 'big player' does to devices. It's not something we want to see done to maemo, meego or anything else Open Source.

I understand concern over a company like Orange possibly giving MeeGo a bad taste. But if you really want 'open' to mean just that then you'll have to accept what Bad Guys can do with 'open'. It's the price of freedom. Would you rather lock MeeGo down to specific rules that must be followed to thwart Orange's evil plans or allow freedom to find it's own way?

qgil is right that despite the risk, big companies on board means more exposure and more devices in use which means more developer interest, more apps, etc. etc.

He's also right that if you don't like Orange or what they do with MeeGo - just don't buy from them. Get your device and/or service from other companies. Vote with your money.

If those rules mean control of devices in put in the hands of the users, then yes.

Freedom for operators to control the device you paid for isn't freedom at all. Nokia and Intel should be using this as an opportunity to change the face of the mobile electronics market, not further the status quo.

The problem with this argument is that it only works for informed consumers. Of which the vast majority of cellular device buyers are not (especially in the US), all they see is the initial price, they don't understand what they're trading for that price and that ignorance will harm MeeGo in the long run.

I'm less concerned about device hardware and software, and more concerned if my service will be acceptable because of the device I choose. Greedy power freaks like pipe providers give me plenty to fear. I don't want to have to worry if my bits will get through because I choose an open-standards-compliant device that the telco didn't have a hand in.

Push technology hasn't hit its stride yet. Mark my words, this field is wide open, and if these pipe merchants mess with innovation in this area, they'll be a shiit storm. It's economic war: We want less of their services, and they want to force us to use the same or more. Being optimistic here wouldn't be wise.

If I understand this issue its a lot like what Verizon used to do (and still does) to some extent to phones sold thru them here in the US.

They would cripple phones features (like bluetooth or tethering capability), put their RED color home screen branding on all phones and add unnessary software on top of the original ROM etc etc.

While I do detest these practices - its still upto the customer to reply to that with their wallets. In fact Verizon lost a lot of informed customers and theiwe were lot of protests against such practices and now Verizon has changed all that a lot (look at Droid). Why did they change ? - Partly because of customer complaints - but more so because of industry changes and competing platforms which took away the Verizon advantage. They had to respond to the market displacement in a positive way and they did in some way.

I think the same will happen with Orange - as long as people dont buy from Orange they are OK with MeeGo. Secondly the open nature of MeeGo will make other vendors provide a more open and customer friendly phone experience to customers and thats when Orange will feel the pinch.

So while initially Orange might spur the uptake of MeeGo and MeeGo based phones, am sure other vendors will follow suit. That is indeed a good sign (as qgil pointed out). The market and the openness of MeeGo will take care of that customers gravitate towards the friendlier solution and not that of Orange (or Verizon) type of companies. Its this change (albeit slow and evolving change) that will foce these companies to change their tact.

So while MeeGo might give Orange a way to lock down users, MeeGo (with a better vendor) might also displace such a closed-down fleece-the-customer model in the longer run.

That's the way most market based technologies evolve. Just trying to force phone mfrs not to work with ISP doesn't always work since Mfrs need the ISP in the short term to be able to bring phones to market.

I dont think this is such a big deal. Here is the US most customers whoc understood a bit shunned Verizon till Verizon felt the pinch. That's how its supposed to work.

Of course in an ideal world all this lock-down methods wouldn't happen at all - but the world is not ideal.

The status quo until very recently was that even if Linux and open source were fine for computers, mobile phones required proprietary OS otherwise bla bla bla security and bla bla bla quality and bla bla bla differentiation. Nowadays who could sustain this in the mobile industry?

Nokia and Intel are playing a big role in this change. Actually some departments of some operators too.

Just to say it explicitly for the people wondering why we're concerned about orange messing around here: if they happen to remain the only big tel-co involved (or even worse, another baddy joins), they could slam a fist on the table and say "no, we will not accept [feature], and if you do it, we'll just take our things and ditch your platform".
Of course, if i were a nokia/intel rep at this point, i'd say good riddance. But wanna bet the real ones won't?

I'm amazed that the quite innocuous link that I started this thread with has generated so much heat! The statement by Orange is quite vague and does not say much. I definitely don't think it should be seen as a threat (at least at this stage).

Surely its a good thing to get as many people and companies behind MeeGo as possible. Admittedly if this stays a very low number them they may have too much influence but you have to start somewhere.