I just wanted to pop in to say I do read threads such as this. Thank you to everyone who has commented to help improve cssu.

p.s. we are in need of a logo/banner for cssu if anyone feels creative in that way

Edit: I didn't quite read the above correctly, I guess I'm actually agreeing here... But anyway, yeah, the difference between other phones and the N900 is that the N900 is running an actual Linux distribution.

Closed-source software, like Windows 3.1, survives only as long as its corporate owner decides to let it live. Windows 3.1 can still run, but can never again be maintained, modified, or improved. All closed-source software faces this bleak future. Whenever you purchase such a piece of software, you should expect that it will be dead someday, and probably someday soon.

Linux is different. The CSSU is a great example -- Nokia may have moved on, but Maemo continues to be improved. Moreover, Linux software continues to be improved, and most of that software can run on the N900, and will continue to for a long, long time to come.

I've been using Linux for something like twenty years now. I'm able to use software on my N900 today that I was using on Sun workstations back in college. I'll probably continue to use the same software on my portable pop-up holographic 3D terminal in the year 2030.

Open-source software never dies.

I don't use the CSSU because ages ago I saw reports of flakiness met with the response that the CSSU was unstable and flakiness was to be expected. "Fair enough", I thought, "it's not for me yet".

I see now that there's a stable version so I'll probably give that a try if it ever picks up features that interest me (I'm not too bothered about transitions & rotation).

But I really appreciate the fact that the CSSU is there, even though I'm not using it yet. You guys are amazing, thanks.

Alas, I just retired my last 3.11 system (notebook) a couple weeks ago. The tiny little hard drive finally went, and while I could have replaced it with a flash drive (it was only 30Mb), I had hardware waiting to replace it made less than 10 years ago. Figured if I was configuring something anyway, may as well use something recent.

I still have a few devices running 98, in place, doing what the've been doing for years. No reason to retire something that's stable & working.

That said, even if the repos do go away, most of the Nokia blobs are pre-loaded in the EMM images (which you have backed up a few places, right?). And with BackupMenu, it's recovery image and the files it creates, one no longer really needs repositories to repair it. To develop for it, or add new things, maybe... but not to maintain it in a static state. (And yes, the open bits can be developed forever...)

But then I'm hoping I've got at least another couple years, between CSSU and the community here, before the N900 goes into that static state. Hopefully Nokia won't pull a Kodak in the next few years.

Anyone want some Kodak stock, btw? I'm sure I can sell it for nostalgia value, in a frame, and make out better than it's current trading value, if one could trade it. NYSE pulled it when it dropped to 32 cents a share this morning. But then Stevie Wonder could have seen that coming...

lol I bet the hard drive is far from tiny and notebook is probably closer to a college dictionary.

Actually, the drive was quite tiny... about a 1" cube, custom Toshiba drive. The system it was in was 8"x11"(x2"), so.. not huge. It was regulating and monitoring my greenhouse, checking soil temperatures and moisture, turning on the water and lights when needed, etc. All that's now being done by an old fox-board running a stripped down linux system, but it lacks a viewable UI. (But I have a web interface now, so just as good.)

The common threat to most electronics in my house is that if it misbehaves it will wind up doing that task (N900 included). Seems to make it all suddenly start working when I utter those words, almost as if they can understand.

Thats what I call "ECO GREEN" electronic system!

Off Topic, but I was in the mood to make something so please have a look at http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php...45#post1153745 and tell me if it meets the requirements. Otherwise write a small guide there that states at least the following

* Required aspect ratio
* What it is needed for (e.g. as a general logo?, to announce CSSU to the community on the right of this page?, for use on the device? etc)
* Should we use the existing icon and the maemo.org logo or do we need a completely new one?
* Whatever other specs

sort'a OFF-TOPIC as it is more about the C then the SSU, but still, it is about the C...

maybe this RTFM approach of posters (on this thread, about CSSU in particular) is the main problem of the Maemo C;
how so?
it is NOT the developers, of course; the developers @ Maemo are just as great & outstanding as devs of any other Linux distro.
what is missing, for the SW as much as for the C is a governing body. an authority which sets standards and decides which package go from dev to test to stable, possibly even coordinating the development effort; but this has been said already in the council thread, hasn't it?

so, totalitarian direction, no freedom?
doesn't have to be; despite all the criticism NOKIA gets about the lousy OS they left us (thanks for creating it in the 1st place, together with outstanding devices?) NOKIA was providing an infrastructure of kind (still does, in fact, by paying the bills to keep Maemo.org running) and some sort of standard that developers could adhere to.
could the council replace that?

anyway, as long as the dev standards of the CSSU are not better defined, i think i'll limit playing around with it to my test device ¦-)
even the stable version :|

Too much love for beaurocracy. Seeing how beaurocracy has killed my country, I hate it as much as I can. I don't think we need it until we really need it. For now we have an awesome product and people have fun making it. When beaurocracy kicks in the fun goes away. Please let people focus on the real thing and do not push them to do non-fun/non-creative jobs just to fulfill your nees for security. Do this job yourself. The rest of us have been trusting the standards the CCSU guys set for themselves and we are perfectly happy, me specifically even with testing. Everybody that wants finer scrutiny of what runs on their device please make the effort and search for it and please go even further. Publicize your findings on the wiki to help others.