Good comments everyone. My n800 is my first experience with an open source device/computer. Is has "opened my eyes" that I have been just a user and not a contributing member of computing community. This has encouraged me to learn more about Linux from sources like linux.org and I am even considering turning an older pc into a Linux machine. Now I just need to figure out which Linux is right for me. I think if we all continue to blog, demo, and share our reasons for trying Linux or an IT, with others not yet involved in it, then the products have a better chance of getting better.
Thanks for reading my rant. I'll get off my soapbox now...

No dude, stay on it. Your enthusiasm is what is needed here in my opinion. About 4 years ago, I had a RedHat Linux PC that I used all the time. I only got rid of it after the hard drive died and I was forced to get a Windoze box for work. After sitting one day and watching the hour glass spin for 5 mins I went out and bought a Mac. I am not a developer in the least. I know my limitations. I design Satellite networks for the government, but I would consider myself an advanced user. I also know what would sell in my community and the N800 is something that would be a hot ticket, but as it stands it is not very appealing.

Many OS projects give on their Project page the possibility to support them, but a paid OS programmer is not always able to code a good application.

For sure there are many unfinished Linux projects but for the larger distributions (Gentoo/(K)Ubuntu ...) you will nearly always find a application of good quality for everything you want to do.

The Linux on Nokia 770/N800 is a very bad example of a distribution since die idea of free software is blocked by the need of a company to sell their products.
For example you can run Gentoo Linux on your 10 year old hardware (and perhaps even older one). You can develop applications on the old hardware for the new hardware and vice versa.
This does not seem to be possible with Maemo since there must be a reason to buy the newest hardware even if most of the new applications do not need a newer device.
Hence there will ever be too few applications for our devices and perhaps many of bad quality.
Hopefully someone gets a free Linux running on the Nokia devices as the different Zaurus Linux distibutions.

For example
http://my-zaurus.narod.ru/cacko.html

I think the reason the number/quality of apps is relatively low at the moment is simply because the Maemo development community is so small. I'd put this down to the initial hardware offering being less than compelling, the 770 was cool but flawed (too little processor power/memory), hence the reason I never bought one. After buying an N800 and playing with it for 3 days I'm convinced this situation will now change as the hardware seems very capable.

Since replacing my PowerBook with a MacPro desktop I've felt using the PowerBook for casual browsing on the couch was complete overkill (and cooking my balls at the same time!) With the N800 I have something perfectly suited to the task of casual browsing and a cool, ahem, *lap*

No flames comming here, but show me one other OS that can run on a furby, dvr, firewall, as400, 64way Power 5, mainframe.

Even on an phone, or internet tablet.

Without opensource that would never happen. Open source has delivered huge contributions to the WORLD. The problem is most of the cool stuff of which you speak is done by people who want it to work for them, then they share, projects get started and merge, and grow.

Nokia has acknowledged a flaw in their philosophy here and has declared that improved abstraction is an important goal going forward.

What does "improved abstraction" mean?

Well of course. We all would want it to work. Who wouldn't? This is the problem as I have seen it and stated it. Much of what I see is aimed at developers who in most cases are not really interested in a finished or polished project, or just something thrown together and then left. No one said the OS community is not contributing but what I see, and I can only speak for myself, is not very impressive. As I have stated time and time again, the N800 will die if it does not appeal to the mass market and provide a unique selling point. Right now, it is in the "nice to have gadget niche" simply because it is not appealing in terms of applications that the masses would deem useful. Think about it. The bloody thing can not even sync data. Like I said, nice to have but not really useful. To be honest, I am an early adapter, and lucky enough to have money to buy pretty much want I want, so I bought this without even knowing what it is or could do, but now that I have it and see the potential, I turned to the OS community for solutions and much of what I see is pretty much a pile of ideas.

the n800, to its credit, hasn't even been on the market for a full quarter. Those of us with 770s have been playing and working with them for a year or so now. the n800 was suddenly popped on us w/o (much or decent) warning.

It does what it does. The fact that there _are_ developers out there working on new apps, and bringing theirs over from the 770 is a testament to the device and platform. No, it's not a Palm or Zaurus or whatever. But, it was never claimed to be. It's an internet tablet. It gets you on the internet. Everything else is fluff.

As someone else mentioned, relatively speaking, maemo is a new platform. You weren't around a year ago when we would bang on the reload key, looking at the application catalog, waiting for the newest application to suddenly show up. Now, it's a long laundry list of anything from networking tools to games. You kids today have no idea how good you have it.

Someone made a comment about not being able to figure out how to use MaemoMapper due to lack of "decent documentation". From day one, that application has been nothing but intuitive. And, it's had a plethora of "documentation" in the form of the forum discussions for any sticky issues (like the exact format of google urls to use).

so, give the 800 a break. It IS new. And, as far as your stance regarding "the common person", I don't think "the common person" is going to go out and drop $400 on an item when they really have no clue what it is. I gave my spare 770 to a friend who is somewhat technical -- she's not a programmer, doesn't know how to work her way through a unix prompt/CLI environment. But, she can put 2+2 together and is really great and pointing and clicking. Within a week, she was up and running full speed, and is in love with it (I'm afraid I may not get it back). So, who is "the common person" ?

I've seen you make several comments already in other threads about "the common person", and how the 800 isn't going to take off. Take some of that energy and go through the tons of wiki pages on maemo.org, read through back posts here.. There is a LOT of good material to digest. Just like with any other new device, you have to put some energy into learning what it is and how to work it. And there are no shortage of materials from which to learn. With anything new, you have to learn. You learned how to operate Windows, your Mac, install satellites, balance a bank account for a household... What kind of miracles are you expecting in 2 months??

@spycedtx,

I think you may have misunderstood my "common man" analogy. Do not get me wrong, I love my N800. I take it everywhere and for the most part I have all the wifi spots in downtown Helsinki mapped out so I know where I can get online if I do not want to use 3G. So, in a word, YES, I want the N800 to succeed, and to do so convincingly. As I also pointed out, I am relatively new to this environment, but you hit upon something that I did not know. You mentioned that Nokia just dropped this on the community without any or very little warning. Fair enough. However can I say this in all fairness, if the N800 was not here and the N770 was still the hot ticket, I would not see much difference in what is being offered. I have looked at the Wiki's and from this and the other places I have visited, I came to this conclusion. I am also sure that new apps will follow. My biggest gripe with all of this is simply the way things are run. Me as a non-programmer could post a piece of crap out there and no one would be the wiser. I think that someone should take charge of Maemo and enforce stricter control over what is being posted. If it works, it stays. If not, it goes. Why have a repository for junk when as you said, there are some good things out there?

So I hope that I have made myself a bit more clear in that I am all in favor of the N800, and the OS community, but things should be a bit more regulated and not a free for all.