+1 to that. The PR 1.2 auto-register thing is ugly, no doubt. But turning to Android and Google as a cure is about like cutting your head off to cure a headache.

No, it is none of those things. However, as someone else said earlier in this discussion, if you are going to be screwed you may as well at least get the benefit of a market leading device, with a lot more apps available. And with behaviour like this I don't see Nokia ever catching up.

Personally, I might stick with a Maemo/MeeGo device -- I am a hacker and it is a lot more open than Android. However, I am not going to help Nokia steal other people's personal information by recommending anyone else to get one, or contributing any more software. The only thing that will change that view is if Nokia publically commit that no Maemo or MeeGo device will ever collect data again without allowing the user to opt out.

Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha

What a crock of steaming....

Nokia reccommend you use a community based* programme that basically tricks the phone into lying on your behalf. The corporate PR machine just churned out a response that advocating lying to them.

That is insane. They are saying you should falsify reporting information to them. I haven't read the Priavcy policy because I am trying to get rid of the N900 because none of the apps work and get money for another phone, but I bet some money that in there will be a clause about falsifying information to them. Most T&C's have some clause that lets them off the hook if you have falsified information. If there isn't, there very soon will be.

Anyone still want to think Nokia are different from Apple or Google. Good luck. It is very clear they want to either step back from the N900 by having the legal stick of "you lied to us" or they want total control later on because you can't upgrade without telling them, and you can't get their "great upgraded OVI store"** without upgrading, so limit your N900 life span by not jumping their hoops.

Much respect to the OP, shame it took soo long.

* Note community based, yet again the community have to do Nokia's job.
** Please note the sarcasm in "great OVI store."

I'm not sure you've read the http://maemo.org/community/council/n...tion_in_pr1-2/ article correctly. It isn't Nokia recommending you run the "notmynokia" package, it's the Community Council recommending that.

This case was covered in Linux Magazin Online (german).

http://www.linux-magazin.de/NEWS/Mae...rung-bei-Nokia

And neither does it answer the point that Nokia are spamming every other Nokia user, not just N900 owners, with involuntary subscriptions and incessant unwanted SMS, including to those who have long since moved to another brand, with no easy way of opting out.

This isn't just a Maemo/Meego issue - its a deliberate policy by Nokia across the board that flies in the face of direct marketing anti-spam legislation and accepted codes of practice (particularly the continued lack of an Unsubscribe or STOP option in the messages despite the numerous complaints from customers past and present). Hence why the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) has now commenced an investigation into Nokia Australia Pty Ltd about potential contraventions of Australia's Spam Act 2003.

Nokia's lack of response to the complaints and refusal to cease and desist this practice is pretty ironic considering their positioning of MyNokia as a service intended to improve communication, customer relations, and customer loyalty. In the face of the competition they are already marginalised and on the backfoot with mediocre hardware and too-late software overhauls. Hardly the time to be creating further brand loathing by stupidity such as this.

I guess we have different definitions of openness, then. I really don't know much about Android having never owned an Android phone. Fine. I'll admit that. However, I do know Maemo.

I think it's great that I can get a Maemo-running device and run "flasher-3.5.exe --enable-rd-mode" to give me the ability to become root. Great! (/no sarcasm) But what does being root really give me on this platform? I can run "ping" and apt-get for when I can't be arsed to deal with Hildon Application Manager. Oh, and I can run "cp" to copy images into /usr/share/icons/hicolor to replace some images for "modding".
Yes, this is an extremely naive PoV and I'm sure a shitton of other things you are able to do could be added here.
Still, for me its usefulness is limited.

Great, Maemo is more open because it doesn't have some shitty VM running atop Linux but instead uses open source components not by Nokia. Things like: GTK+, Clutter, GLib, VTE, ...
This means that I can take most desktop Linux apps using the same and recompile them, right? Yes. Sure, it won't look pretty but it's something that Android can't do and that's why we have libhildon and libosso among others, mm?

'Cept, hmm, Linux on the desktop (let's not go into what it is here [OS? Kernel?], please) has moved on. Nokia are using old-*** versions of some of the libraries mentioned above which tends to make the task of "just recompiling" not so easy.
Why not just update the libraries, you say? Well, you see, thanks to the litany of closed source components to be found in Maemo, who knows which of them'll break. There's a reason you actually see Android on devices other than Google's. Hell. there's a reason why it's somewhat available for this device.
Yes, I'm sure Qt will save us all and I'm genuinely glad it's an option, for I have seen some wonderful applications utilizing it. Still, whilst I may have dabbled in QtDBus thanks to w00t, my GLib-foo remains stronger. Yes, Nokia opened Qt - 'grats to them - but ever consider that some of the underlying APIs it wraps under Maemo are closed? Not much that can be done by Qt about that of course, but consider which corporation holds the copyright to those closed libraries that provide that underlying API. Judging by that PDF SD69 linked to, I doubt Nokia are gonna be changing their ways for MeeGo. Hell, I'll be surprised if MeeGo on the community-led N900 port looks anything the same as it does on N666XXX when(/if) it's finished. At least Android, minus manufacturers' additions/removals, generally looks somewhat the same across devices (barring differences in the version of course). Why? Much more of the code written by Google themselves happens to be open. Saying that Maemo is 80% open source means **** all when it's the closed Nokia components like the Phone application that many on here have a problem with.

Let's take Brainstorm. I find it useless, personally, but I'd say it's popular and items from Bugzilla get moved there so, yes, it's important as it is useless (if that makes sense...).
Let me cherry pick some entries:
* "support for sim toolkit" - How? The libraries that access the SIM card are not only closed but either have no way outside of a closed library to access that interface or are just plain undocumented due to Nokia's incompetence. Either way, the person who's asking is ****ed.
* "Nokia Messaging widget" - doable, true - Modest is mostly open (relies on some closed components, but minor ones) and its D-Bus interface is published, but a person willing to come up with a solution may find their enthusiasm is somewhat curbed when they realise that the Modest desktop widget that Nokia coded is closed and they can't be arsed to re-do the same work that Nokia is keeping closed.
Mind, there are exceptions. One such person, nicolai, who happens to wonder, just like me, why Nokia keep their stuff closed has managed to make open source clones of the calendar widget and the profile stuff (not the backend daemon; just the UI stuff, really). These clones are not only better, but they're open. I'm sure that it would have been a lot quicker if he could've seen the code for the original he was cloning.

And you, Graham Cobb, wrote this wiki page because you were writing a call forwarding app.
I'm presuming that the fact that CSD is closed and its D-Bus interfaces are undocumented made writing that app a not-so-trivial task.

That page helped me to solve this.
However, I did that a month after the question was asked. No Nokian gave him the answer, just little old me.
Why? They don't give a ****. They have a closed source library (libconnui) that has all/most of CSD's D-Bus interfaces all wrapped up in a nice API for them. But that API isn't accessible to the likes of you or me, for Nokia won't even put the headers in nokia-binaries. Nokia. Open, right?

Between Custom Operator Name Widget (a clone of yet another closed library/program, FWIW), Caller ID State Switcher Widget (this one was more fun as it involved Mission Control this time), 3G/2G Mode Selection Applet and those three examples in that thread above, I'd have hoped that Nokia would've gotten the hint by now. And that's just my CSD-related ****. But what is it they say? Oh, yeah: A leopard never changes its spots.

Since there seems to be a lot of bollocks regarding Nokia's openness flying around, please, people, don't cry when I tell you that Maemo is not.

Back to the privacy issue, with a slight Android twist: Nokia are content to take an unknown amount of details (see the advantages for Nokia by having it done by a closed source program - Cherry?) from me, just like Google. So, no, that does not make them better than Google.
Since I am a hypocrite and have a Gmail account (which I willingly signed up for; see the difference?), I'd rather get anal raped by one company. See where I'm going?

I don't much care if Nokia catches up. I've got no personal stake in Nokia. I'm very interested in the success of MeeGo however.

Android is less open and a less capable OS. I'd think that as a hacker you'd be much more interested in working with a full-stack Linux, open OS like MeeGo than a Linux/Davlik hybrid. And MeeGo will need contributors like you to succeed.

Edit: Agree 100% that Nokia should make a clear statement regarding the ability to opt-out of data collection, regsitrations, etc.

Everyone bent outta shape over this cherry bomb thing should remember a few things going forward.

1. MeeGo does not = Nokia, not the way Maemo = Nokia.
2. MeeGo is hosted by the Linux Foundation as an independent OSS project.
3. So, MeeGo will not include anything like a cherry bomb unless the manufacturer puts it there.
4. Therefore, contributing to MeeGo does not = contributing to aiding and abetting invasion of personal privacy.
5. Anyone that thinks contributing to Android or the iPhone would be somehow morally preferable to MeeGo, or even Maemo, needs to have some sessions with their local shrink.

This scandal has (somewhat) changed my outlook toward Nokia. It has not changed my outlook toward MeeGo. Mostly, it means I'll be careful in choosing future MeeGo devices to see what the manufacturer has included in their particular version of MeeGo.

We shouldn't divagate. Android is a total different topic... and it has nothing to do with how Nokia acts. In my opinion Google neither Apple are good examples for this issue.

But every time a colleague, friend or a boss asked me: "Boah, cool stuff on your phone. Websites with flash, so fast, cool and fast task switching. Could you recommend it? I have to extend my contract and can select a new phone." - I was aware of a clear statement and considered the most time to answer: "rather not"

And this, not only because of Nokia's style to show how much they like their current and potentially furthermore customers (see post #1 in this thread)... No it's because of the well summarized missteps and my loooooong and annoying list of Bugs I have huge problems with.
I have still buttons to answer a call (despite there is a well voted Brainstorm since several months), I still can't add custom description for phone numbers like on my symbian N95 and we have still no confirmation that we will ever be able to import old SMS messages into the internal database in a correct form (and this is a easyfix!).

And it's now more than 6 months after the release!

With this in my mind and the single line reply "Nokia currently does not plan to reintroduce this." after Nokia has removed a often used feature on my Device without warning before updating to PR1.2, I should recommend a N900 to other people asking me in the believe I wouldn't want to give a bad advice?

Would I recommend my Boss this device when he asks me? - NO, I WONT! I have to work with him every day. Neither to my friends. I want to keep them and don't hear from them after several weeks: "because of you I have lost 200€, I got not enought money at eBay for this shitty N900 without a proper calendar".
No, I can't! Not without a guilty conscience. Not before I seebig steps from nokia to repeir their image.

I, myself, can't recommend the N900. The people knows Symbian and won't buy it again by their own decision. So what's there at the moment? Apple and Android. So, they buy Android and when they happy with it they will also buy it in the future. I would also only switch a platform when I am unsatisfied enought with the old.

Android, Google, Apple and their attitudes and actions regarding privacy and data mining vs Nokia's are at least somewhat relevant to this thread. Rants about missing features, bugs, etc. are not. Let's not turn this thread into another thread about that stuff. There's plenty of other threads already for that.