To get 'freedom/free reign' as the Linux community has enjoyed in the desktop x86 commodity parts world, then you'd better pray for open and commoditized mobile handsets (which is IMHO darn unlikely).

Otherwise, think long and hard about who is actually funding the platform. If the N900 can cater to the "shiny shiny" crowd and sieve some funds off them, then I'd say that's just about the best thing that could happen to Maemo/MeeGo/N900.

This is when it would be beneficial if more people in the community can take a step back see the bigger picture. Consider the platform (and Nokia's) goals and decide whether you want to align your goals with theirs or not. An OS that can cater to a bigger audience will get more commercial support. What does THAT mean? More devices will run your platform of choice and that means you get more devices to choose when it's time to upgrade and guaranteed long time industry support.

*steps off the soapbox*

trololo.

This is wonderfull, trolls and fanboys mixed, shaked and two new species are coming to life, Tuxish ("I'm a geek for years and only me and my friend must be allowed to use Linux") and Shinish ("I love open os but that does not mean I must debug the system myself using Terminal and c++. because I paid for a pulished product)
Shinish moves the world, Tuxish want to stop it.

My guess is that the majority of the people who buy the N900 (and therefore bring money to Nokia and the Maemo/MeeGo team) understand pretty well what the device is. They're not "siny shiny" people.

The Shiny-Shiny will start to complain soon after they opened the box and may, in the long run, not be very profitable customers from a business perspective.

I would hope that the delays of the firmware is a least due to fixing the top bug on my list. The one about bluetooth with car-handsfree and handsfree units in general. There are many reports with the same problems as I have with the poor sound quality. With my own HCB-108 (SE) carkit it's actually completely useless to have a conversation, there is a robotic voice, acoustic feedback and complete sound dropouts. That carkit works perfect with other phones, even with Nokia's own E66. Some say it's because of interference with WLAN (since it use the same frequency band), but to me it doesn't matter if I turn that off or not.

I'm not complaining here, just saying that I'm willing to wait very long for the next firmware (PR1.2), just as long as this basic bluetooth functionality gets fixed. I am following any new on that one in bugzilla, but I'm sad to see it's still unresolved (#6766). There doesn't seem to be much activity on that one and no info from Nokia (as usual).
BTW, has anyone the flashed the leaked PR1.2 tested using handsfree bluetooth units and noticed any improvement?

I understand not telling us when it will be released.

But could they tell us that it isn't going to be released in a certain month? Makes things a lot easier.

And it would be silly for them not have some knowledge of these forums. They have had an oportunity to communicate directly with a large portion of the user base.

Yeah.. but imho, this forum is like the user base from hell.

will the release increase battery life?

Longer they hold back 1.2, the more likely 1.3 will not happen at all. (Or a 1.4 after that)

With the future of the whole Nokia Maemo / Meego unlikely / unknown / dodgy / rocky (Insert your own word) 1.2 comes out, they work on 1.3.

However with Meego coming out, the worker(s) at Nokia supporting the N900 will be diverted to Meego and making their new 'shiny shiny' model which they will then push, leaving those suckers that paid over the odds for the N900 to be left in the lurch as with all large scale manufacturers who just want to sell their latest model. Meego gets closer, 1.2 release date gets further back and as everyone has said Nokia target emerging markets, China is one, Europe ain't. They have our money the moment we got this phone, so why concentrate supporting this load of crud when they can target (With our money) their new cash cow. I predict 1.3 dead and buried or the last they will do, 1.2 will be June, maybe July if they think they can survive the backlash (Let's be honest they are doing a good job so far)

Testing, what is to test Exactly? It is a fixed hardware spec (It is already tested for sale, so why not release) and the caveat of telling you lot not to jailbreak your phone. Or instructions on how to reset to factory default so you can start a fresh with a clean install. Not rocket science and Ubuntu has done this for a long time. Everyone is happy to stick ubuntu onto a Pc and reinstall, recompile and run, you don't then get at Ubuntu for not testing it 3 million times, and they can still release (The entire OS) by their deadline. With a simple message saying before I run this wizard, "back up your critical files."

There is a wall, and it has writing on it.
/Cynic.

IMHO releasing an upgrade needs a lot more testing to ensure all possible versions of N900 at various stages of use can be upgrade smoothly with no issues. It's not as simple as releasing a brand new pr1.2 software for HK where only a newly flashed phone needs to be considered.

I think they should have communicated better and not let the user hanging since software development isn't an exact science and can be unpredictable.

The problem are all related to the fact that Maemo 5 is not open enough. I really hope Meego will be what is expected: a true open OS.
As much as I love what Nokia did with Maemo 5, the fact that they cannot release minor updates (as soon as a component is updated and is tested why cannot it be sent to everybody!) + the fact that the testing is not opened is creating such a mess !!
Anyway I am enjoying my device everyday