I thought there would be longer software support than that? I might have dreamed it, but the behaviour of the updates are much different from the way Diablo was, which points to it..

Wrong. Updates availability should at least cover warranty period.

I have not read the entire thread, however would like to add some comments.

As Stskeeps has said, the support community will provide Meego on the n900. Nokia has effectively confirmed that they will ensure this is happens. Nokia are acutally appear undecided about releasing and supporting such an update through Nokia.

So if you have an N900, and enough enthusiasm to load a community distribution, meego WILL be available.

So the question is, are the any drawbacks to having a communty distribution should Nokia not change from current posistion and support the OS?

And yes there are.
1. Have a problem you n900? Well, if you don't restore Maemo5 you may not get warrantee service.

2. Less n900 owners will update to meego than would if it came as a Nokia upgrade, fragmenting the user base- which is not an issue if app software providers nave no n900 specific considerations to consider at all.

Community distros and the support community around the n900 and following devices being a something beyond and iPhone or other relatively closed devices. However.....

I suggest nokia have not fully made the adjustment from cellphone to mobile computer themselves. Yet anyway. I do hope they will.

With a cellphone which is an appliance, upgrading to a new OS is not a mainstream idea. However, with a computer, one expects that a new OS released, say six months after the computer being introduced, will be supported. Not just available as a community distribution, but supported.
I suggest the difference is like paying for redhat support, but then finding a new release comes out and you have to move to CENTOS.

What I hope is that Nokia changes what they have done in the past for cellphones and for these mobile computers offers new OS version support for ...something like 18months.....even if there is an extra fee attached if you accept that option.

With cellphones, the ability to run apps released even after you purchases the device was not something you should expect. I suggest with mobile computers it IS something you should expect.

Otherwise, closed devices like the iPhone where availability of OS updates is expected seem to be more in touch with the mobile computer concept than Nokia is, and that would be sad.

The availability of the community and open source should take the n900 and subsequent devices to another level. The future success shouldn't be damaged by not complimenting community support with Nokia's own support where appropriate.

I think it's too early to tell. Maemo 4[1] got 5 updates (not counting beta and minor updates, sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maemo#Release_history, http://tablets-dev.nokia.com/nokia_N810.php, http://tablets-dev.nokia.com/nokia_N800.php) over a 13-month period[2].

We are now in the 3rd to 5th month (depending on how you count) since Maemo 5 reached users and have had one major update (and a couple of minor ones) with a second major update imminent. Some bugzilla comments (https://bugs.maemo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=6394#c5) already indicate that there is also going to be at least a "PR1.3" update, but nothing is known beyond that.

[1] I think counting Chinook and Diablo together for this is appropriate, YMMV.
[2] Which in itself is fine. My major gripe is that Nokia never came out and said that 43-7 was the final update, if they had we could have started working on community updates over a year ago.

Unfortunately there are. Do not get me wrong, I love open source - but in case of commercial product liability is still on Nokia shoulders.
Is N900 hardware totally immune to programming errors? What happens if device is irrecoverably broken within warranty period so oryginal software cannot be restored? That's the reason it is important that Nokia assures compatibility with MeeGo, not community.
And so here is my concern why Nokia keeps silent about it and even more: trying to drag community developers to new platform so the chances to have dynamic community around N900 are even lower.

All agreed except Nokia are not silent about it.

The official stance is that that n900 is a Maemo 5 device. The community may release new software and Nokia may assist, but the n900 is officially a Maemo 5 device and Nokia has no had no plan for Maemo6 of any new OS. Meego is not the change.
The implication is that all devices are released with an OS version and there may be patches that are consider fixes to the original version- there are no upgrades. The idea a device is a device where support is to be officially forever linked to a specific OS is i suggest an appliance mentallity no longer relevant with 'mobile computers'.

I dont think that there are that many outside of the geek groups that actually know that that the os is separate from the hardware. I would guess that microsoft makes most of its windows sales from oem licenses.

also, be it computer or phone, the first thought of most users when something breaks (as long as its a work supplied device) is to call the brand on the case, be it nokia, dell or whatever.

PR2 has also been mentioned once or twice.

Any pointers? http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Amaemo.org+PR2 comes up with nothing relevant...

Probably in the #maemo logs somewhere.