If the N900 is completely re-programmable then whatever Nokia bring out can be programmed into the N900 surely? Maemo7 maemo8 etc etc. that DOES make the N900 very unique if this is fact.

Ye, I think it is ...keeping in mind the number of OS's ported to the device...

and I also remember this Maemo dude saying that meego may or may not come to the N900, if it doesn't he expects the community to step in and port it to the N900 !!

So yea the phone is awesome !!

I very hope it is possible to re-programme ANY OS into the N900 then all we have to do is juat wait ! because whatever Nokia bring out ... ha .. we can follow by simply programming into the N900.
IF this is true then we have the very first RE-PROGRAMMABLE MOBILE PHONE/COMPUTER in the world ! this is when the Maemo community can come into its own.

i would have thought any device with flash and cpu can be reprogrammed but the os has to have the right kernel and drivers to support the device.

The problem isn't fixing up the N900 for the OS, it's fixing up the OS for the N900.

The N900's boot loader doesn't require a signed kernel to boot. That's why it's much more open than other phones, which only boot signed kernels.

Yes your right this is why i think no N900 owner needs to worry about it becoming outdated as far as i can tell and i am looking at every factor i can see ( but i am no way a linux expert) it means what they all say about the N900 that its a hackers dream being completely open that people just have to be patient and wait for any problems to be sorted out by developers or nokia themselves, i personally think this N900 has got to be the very first of its kind as it can never be left behind in future developments hmmmmm someone prove me wrong here please !

If this is true, then that means we just bought an iPhone and HTC Nexus.

i did not yet find an easily read and understood chart of which parts of the n900's hardware are _not_ open.

coming from the freerunner i know we had some issues mostly with the gsm chip (it took some bothering until the producer provided a fixed firmware) and the graphics chip (specs available only under nda, although the chip being discontinued), though the gsm is encapsulated and communicates via at commands and the graphics chip received some heavy reverse engineering, pushing it somewhat over the limits intended by the manufacturer.

iirc there are some crucial parts which have closed drivers only, meaning once nokia loses interest in the n900 (which seems to have happened already, given the hassle with meego), we are pretty much screwed.
let's hope either nokia opens the specs and makes free drivers possible or there are enough hw guys to reverse engineer those parts.

someone already tried to boot into Ubuntu 10.04 (netbook / armel beta 2)?