Well, in this case the legality is verified in court, unless they release it willingly. Suing the corporation like Nokia is not an easy task to do.

The other option is they have somehow circumvented the license (such as GPL), so it may be very difficult to win the case.

In any case there is a history of successful trials against big vendors. The preferred way off course would be that agreement is settled with the manufacturer before any court action.

So far we know that Nokia is willing to delegate maintenance of closed source binaries for n900 to third party. In may opinion this is not enough, because sooner or later that agreement may come to a stop for whatever reason.

The main issue here is that you remain tied to the kernel versions and distribution Nokia has choosen. There are such things as debian and gentoo on N810 and n900, but non of them is capable of charging the battery (I'dont own n900, so I might be wrong, please correct me).

Releasing the sources for at least HW for 770, 800, 810 and 900 would make these platforms truly open.

There are some closed source bits, that operated between application and low level components, that are close source as well. It would be very interesting if any of such binaries has somehow violated the license.

android is "based on Linux" too

What is the difference between what is legal to do and keeping a company alive? would it not make more sense to release if it means popularity for the company that is not only incapable of Maemo progress but also hitting a new low with customer satisfaction.

The 3rd parties in question would also be raising there own levels of customer satisfaction.

For the likes of ysss, jedi,cfh11 and everyone not interested in Maemo progress really do need to come in here with helpfull advice to the cause instead of trying to start arguments with negativity, not really what is being asked for on this Poll.

Reminding everyone this is a Community Poll that everyone intersted should help and not hinder as it is purely for the benefit of N900 owners and people interested in Maemo progression.

just because i recognize how pointless this thread is does not mean i am not interested in Maemo progress. i choose to support projects that are more organized and have clear goals (i.e. CSSU, Cordia, and Meego), none of which exist in this thread.

Is there a magic number that gives us the source?

You seem to be making the incredibly arrogant assumption that me not partaking in this poll you created means I'm not interested in seeing Maemo progress?!

I've already stated in a previous post that I'm not taking part in your poll due to personal reasons - specifically because it's you and your previous history on this forum.

And that makes you a good Community member? this is not about personal anything, it is about Maemo.

Call Elop's house and hangup, he'll break eventually.

Oh give the 'community' crap a break William. Do you really think everyone has suddenly forgotten all your personal attacks over the time you've been here?

And now you're trying to promote yourself as some kind of ambassador for this community?! LOL!

It is personal.

We all want the source, it's silly to ask us that ! What some of us don't want is you to represent us ! You did not earn that right.