Any jail can be broken out of given enough people who are pissed off and determined enough to do it. Even if it requires a hardware hack which would limit the amount of people who could do it. It would eventually be possible.

Not to mention the article you linked qgil said that it can be downloaded to PC or Mobile. Even if people didn't bother with it on the Mobile they could just do it all on the PC.

The DRM I'm more concerned about is regarding applications. Seems that you will be forced to choose between a DRM closed system and an open system down the line (if I'm reading your post #15 correctly)

In physics pressure is less likely to break a closed system if there is an evident gate to the outside. This is why in Maemo 6 the possibility of switching modes will be officially supported and documented.

If you have purchased applications using DRM to handle their licensing rights then obviously you won't be able to use those apps if you get rid of DRM support in your system. If you don't like this combination you can contact the developers relying on DRM solutions for their business models. Or choose the software and services you use consistently according to your DRM preferences.

With this flexibility in the Harmattan system, I personally think you can't blame Harmattan itself and its security framework providing such choices. Is there any consumer electronics product offering officially such a feature? I think this is a good step trying to conciliate existing business models with software freedom.

I think everyone is confusing Ovi Music with "Comes with Music".

Ovi Music is just a music store like any other. I understand it will become DRM free sometime.

Comes with Music is more like a music subscription service, such as Zune Pass or Rhapsody. And those will probably always remain DRMed.

In theory, yes. In practice, if you rely on services you're gonna need authentication. And some jails are damn hard to break. Such as Playstation 3 and Symbian.

Will the "open" mode be fully usable, e.g. for making phone calls?

Elena will give more details in her session today and if you are in tyher Maemo Summit you can ask her, but in short: yes.

Basically, the same levels of freedom of Maemo 5 will be available for those willingin to enjoy them in future releases..

Oh, the joys of going mainstream...

The Digitally Restricted Mode in Maemo 6 may be OK if changing between the two modes is as easy as checking/unchecking a box in the settings menu... (and maybe restart).
If it requires more than just that (like connecting the device to a PC via USB and issue a command similar to R&D mode), the game's over for good.

It may also be OK if what you cannot do outside the DRM-jail is restricted to the absolute minimum: run applications and play media that are defective by design. It might well happen that for some reason it's decided that, say, access to the telephony-components is only possible in restricted mode. That would be unacceptable.

Also, it must not be possible for resellers to manipulate the device in a way that it becomes DRM only. Yes, one could argue that even then it's still your choice where you buy it from, but: Having a majority of devices out that can't even switch to DRM-free mode would encourage Nokia to make Maemo 7 or Maemo 8 DRM-only. (This is what I fear most: that Harmattan is the last iteration that provides a DRM-free mode at all)

One thing I have to say, though, even though I'm very embarrassed:
I do hate and fight the idea of DRM... but Nokia's Comes With Music on a Maemo device would be something I'd use. I'm a hypocrite.

Another side note:
It will be interesting to see how they implement DRM technically on top of a free system... And if their solution - once Maemo gains momemtum - will make it over to the desktop. Anyone here has an idea how it could be done?

We at Nokia have not said that we will not continue to support alternative music business models than DRM-protected music content distribution. What we have said is that we will add a business model for music distribution which we do not have on Maemo yet i.e. DRM protected content. If we want take open source based consumer electronics to mainstream then we have to enable all common content distribution business models: DRM and non-DRM protected content.

Can network operators stop this? Can sim locking remove the 'open' mode?

Good that officially both modes are supported with documentation, providing those pesky networks can't interfere with the open mode capability.

Is all of OVI store in closed mode? Does that include Nokia Maps? Or does it fall under OVI and therefore all DRM'd? Nice if free stuff on OVI could be used.

Rich

The following is entirely guess work: I imagine to switch between the modes will require a reflash. Maybe there will be a dual-boot option. I would expect all your content (including address book) in one mode to not be accessible in the other. If this doesn't require a reflash or dual-boot then I would be very surprised, as anything less that would likely be hackable.