When there is an industry-wide notion to harm consumers, there's not a lot you can do to convince the industry to stop the harm. This is the entire reason for any regulation. What is the point of government if the government isn't there to represent its constituents? Instead, at least in the telecommunications industry, we have much of the government working to represent lobbying telecommunications carriers who claim to represent what the customers think and want while ignoring or even preventing up-and-coming smaller carriers with aspirations of providing what customers actually want, if only they had a fair opportunity. Ultimately, convincing carriers of anything, in this climate, is an exercise in the banal absurd.

Actually, the truth be told, most of the organic-labeled foods are arguably less safe than the non-organic. You're mainly paying a premium price for the label of 'organic.' (ref: Mayo Clinic, as one example - http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/org...SECTIONGROUP=2 ...read anything scientific, really, for the same results)

I'm not sure that I would prefer to pay the extra for organic to know that I got something that generally doesn't taste as fresh, succulent nor is any safer than the cheaper and more reliably less bug-eaten fruit.

Therefore, I'm not sure I like the idea of promoting open-source as the 'organic food' in this analogy. I certainly don't think I should have to pay more to run something I may have written or contributed to making, either.

The only positive side of the carriers is their network, but even if there were no at&t or Tmobile and all we had was people with wifi modems at home we (the public) would have came up with solutions like boingo and wefi and mesh networking (meraki) to spread around the wifi. Nokia and the community of programmers and app writers contribute more to mobile innovation and fun then the carriers ever will or could.
They are being helped and at the same time they are somewhat hindering the people and companies that help them. Nokia has thousands of patents on wireless technology and they (Nokia-siemens ) are the ones speeding up EDGE improving the carriers ability to deliver.
Where are all the carrier employees on this maemo council trying to make it a better, funner, more usable OS? There are none.
I bet that AT&T guy/s on symbian foundation is there mostly to figure out how to cripple the OS. I'm sure he's not there to contribute much other than "will it work on AT&T and can i cripple it?"
When is the last time you heard a carrier make a significant contribution to a council or group that led to more innovation? Did they get forced into it or in some way pressured into it?
Most of these carriers are like big stupid obnoxious bullies standing around going "Don't call me dumb!"
Well compared to the programmers and Manufacturers and even a portion of the end users they are!
If they start trying to cripple our Nokia tablets then I better get a Vertu tablet with sapphires and liquid metal on it to make up for it.

It would be like paying the makers of the chemicals money not to use them, it would simply give them even more reason to manufacture chemicals.

Don't make the mistake of confusing selfishness and deviousness for being dumb. If they're gaining anything, they're not being dumb--they're quite successful. The dumb, in that case, are we the consumers for not making a bigger noise together to complain about it and demand regulations.

This metaphor isn't very apt.

From what ive read, carrier relationships in the US have never flourished because of Nokia's unwillingness to cripple the phone at the carriers behest. The E71x so crippled its not funny from what ive heard and a pointless exercise for Nokia if they want to be a services company.

What i imagine Nokia might be doing is making their devices so appealing to the consumer that the carriers will have to capitulate in the end because if they dont, a small carrier be happy to run the devices as Nokia intended and risk losing market share.

Nokia N900 is the most liberal, feature_complete smartphone as of yet. Ofcourse carriers do not like such progressive device. They'd rather have control. Nokia, to me, seems like a corporation which least screws their customers in this regard, and is therefore on less good ties with carriers than for example Apple. Example: Nokia bundles Skype in mobile phones. Apple clearly gives its users heroin, after which they don't care they're screwed by both carrier (T-Mobile in NL, AT&T in US, ...) and Apple (crazy control freaks).

The carriers don't want to be convinced because it hurts their direct interests and because others are easy to influence. The users cannot be convinced because they are too stupid due to lack of formal education (simple maths). The government cannot be convinced because they are too corrupt. Nothing will change in the short term. Unfortunately.

What you want instead is the infrastructure owned by an entity who has incentive to own it. When I was in US, I saw roads being sponsored by private business of the area. In return they had their name advertised as-is. A great principle IMO. Meanwhile, the Dutch railroad is not owned by the government but instead by a private corporation different than those who operate the trains. Positive: every entity has interest to provide quality. Negative: finger pointing.

I also see on 'broadband' Internet landscape some businesses who break network neutrality while others don't. If vulture.. err venture capitalists own the business and all they care for is short term profit they don't give a **** about the brand recognition, and because they have a monopoly or very little competition they can screw the customer. Thats what UPC (cable corp.) does here. Meanwhile you get what you pay for! I pay more for my ADSL but its managed by professionals who have more ethics than the average ADSL provider.

So in the end money talks and most customers are stupid or don't care. If unsubsidized phones are becoming more and more popular, or law limits or prevents the practice, we're going to see some fireworks. They also throw with mud. In reply to 2-year contracts becoming illegal in NL (instead 1 year + then each month able to unsubscribe) they replied this would be the end of carrier subsidized phones. The end? Hmm, strange, given they continuously sell 1-year subsidized phones as well as of now. Slowly but surely however, LTE will roll out, and this means there will be IP-only subscriptions with limits in one way or another (speed, priority/network_neutrality, traffic, ...).

I agree. I want an open source device (the N900 is perfect) and I will offer my business to any network operator that supports the full features of that device.

Sorry, that is just not true. The most recent scientific study I read was so poorly done that its conclusions could not be supported. So it takes more than reading "anything scientific". It takes critical reading of a lot of things and it takes a deeper understanding of the big picture.

I know this is off topic, but I could not let that nonsense go unchallenged.

This website covers USA; not world-wide.

It is case by case scenario. You're talking about fruit; the above website is not centered about fruit. Fruit generally rots quickly, and there are various methods to preserve it (e.g. freeze dry). Try raw nuts (e.g. almonds, pistachio, peanut) versus organic nuts and tell me what tastes more fresh. I bet many people have neve even eaten a raw almond/pistachio/peanut. Some fruits are always organic, like coconut. And some countries simply have other (stricter) rules than others.

Anyway, the compare is moot because open source or not says nothing about the quality of the product, and organic has nothing to do with 'openness'.