I do not understand your analogy. Nokia is responsible for official gas tank with official tank cap. If you choose to change it or make modifications to it then you are on your own. This is how real life works!

You can brake N900 by single command from x term. You are able to brake it in many different ways. Just install stuff from webpage x and BOOM there goes dynamite! You are responsible 100% on what you install on your system. I would say that If you only install stuff from Nokia repositories and it brakes then you are entitled to contact nokia care. But if you choose to fool around with your device because it´s possible then you are on your own. Simple as that. I do not know if this whole responsibility thing is too hard to understand. If so then I´m really really worried about my fellow internet warriors around me :|

Should hammer have some kind of security method that prevents user from hitting himself/herself? It´s probably possible to make security method that makes it safe but it comes with cost of easiness of usage.

.edit
OH and BTW When people are using Nokias own application manager to install stuff from maemo.org please READ the warning text. It´s not there just for fun.

Some kind of giant "cone of shame" should probably do the trick for preventing serious injury but not for thumbs

wait, I thought I saw that when I was updating OTA...

hi,
for what its worth:

the n900 is a quite expensive peace of /almost/ perfect hardware. that almost is the anoying part: you see what the phone could be if it was not for some sloopyness(like wiring wrong pins, display protection, usb mounting). small issues wich result in unecessary bad userexperience.

same sloopyness continues with the software. a customer who buys a expensive phone that is broadly adverticed can expect a that it just works out of the box. he can expect that an update just works out of the box - without loosing any of his data or settings. at least it should warn the user.

open source and linux is a good thing. sure there is a lot but not enough working software in the open to run a phone with that alone. still i think its beneficial for nokia to at least have a lot of software available to use. i would think it should be possible to implement the rest asuring high quality standards and i would think doing so is less effort than implementing everything from scratch inhouse. and i would further think that with the linux community creating more and more support for phones it seems wise and benificial for future nokia projects to support that community.
so in essence not delivering a high quality reference implementation on the phone is difficult to understand. the more difficult as part of that is already implemented by the linux community.

even more difficult to understand is if nokia is not able to deliver such an sound reference implementation that it prevents the linux communty to do it. statements like nokia want to stay strong lable in this context are funny at best. i would think bad userexperience with a nokia phone does not realy strengthen the nokia lable. and i would think giving the people the possibility to implement somthing better would strengthen their label for they could use that software not only for a better user experience with this phone but also with future phones.

so i comletely understand the rant. nokia isn't responsible for things user do to the phone and every operating system that may run on the phone. but nokia does have a responsibility to deliver a full functioning phone via a refence implementation and a customer can expect high quality standards regarding this implementation.

still: the n900 is quite a good peace of hardware. the anoying thing is: it could be a so much better device.

I betcha 99% of people who had a back-up tool pop-up (instead of just a reminder) as part of the procedure the way most BIOS flash tools do (or even the convenience of having it just one-click away, like ROM manager/nandroid/etc on Android) would click on NEXT.. NEXT all the way into a back-up before ending up flashing. Your point really SHOULD be that people will generally follow NEXT prompts--maybe that's the place to put a back-up tool. :P

The way Maemo back-up works isn't very good because it doesn't restore a last known good state. If something is flawed along the way (say repository goes offline, you end up not being able to get an Internet connection, corrupted repo data, etc.) you can't restore your device back to the last known good state. BACKUP/RESTORE IMPLEMENTATION FAIL.

At the VERY least it should be an optional back-up method available to users as part of a flash upgrade, for crying out loud. :P

I think you missed the part where it was done with the firmware flashing tool--where there wasn't any opportunity given nor even a reminder. I'm pointing out that, as a matter of routine, it should give you the opportunity to create a back-up copy of the current system state that you can flash back onto the system in case the new firmware flashing ruins things.

come on man, a random deb can do anything to your device. that is why only tested apps can go to the extras.....

Actually that was my point though not explicitly stated, but you're smart enough to conclude "that unless a backup is made default most people will just skip it".

Am I correct in saying that your beloved nandroid is not a standard tool provided by a default android installation? If so, why are you not comparing like with like? What is the default android backup tool like?

As I said before, you can install and use the optional Backup Menu V2.

There is absolutey nothing wrong with the robustness or security of Linux. But any fool knows there are risks in running alpha or beta software on ANY OS.

Apple's security system is just let the Emperor Jobs decide for you what's safe, not let you decide for yourself whether you're willing to accept risks for rewards.

hi,
a backup is nice if you have a windows machine that has no better ways to handle upgrades. but hold on, this is a *nix system. it has a filesystemstructure that is made for distribution upgrades while keeping local and user data intact!
indeed an old debian slogan was: "and it never changes your settings without asking you first" and they kept the promise for a long time.
well maybe hard to achieve sometimes. at least inhouse software should upgrade smoothly without discarding any userdata and without necessity to backup, for it should not touch anything the user changed without asking.

edit: for the point that made here for other software sources:
well if YOU mixmatch things this is your problem. addon software goes to local or opt.

A backup is a universal requirement for safe data on any operating system anywhere in the world.