The Android flavor of Java, the Dalvik VM as I understand is fully free. I thought at least all of what constitutes J2SE is too these days.

Still, seems to me like the non-free parts of Android are similar to Maemo's, there's probably a bit less of them but that is a little hard to tell because 1) there are many Android devices and what is closed is likely to vary between them 2) the Maemo wiki documentation doesn't really seem to be up to date on this issue.

I listened to the podcast and their main argument for choosing Android as their platform seemed to be that they are more convinced it will be around for a long time to come than they are with Maemo's continuing existence. Another thing they seemed to be saying was that there is so much work to be done in maemo userspace apps that devs have no time or interest to concentrate on making the low-level stuff free (not sure that is a very sensible argument but there you have it).

They admitted that there is more free software in the applications for Maemo but think that it's a non-issue and the low-level things like kernel modules and libraries are what is the hard stuff to get free. Another issue with Android they mentioned was that the App store is not usable at all with an unofficial firmware, "it's a bit like Debian without apt-get". I think they underestimate the effect having Google be a bit uncooperative can have on the platform.

It's pretty useless to discuss about what's more "open" - because the word "open" means different things to different people.

If you define "open" as "I can download the whole code and compile it in my PC", then maybe Android is more open, yes.

I personally define "open" as "The licensing guarantees that most of what I have on my device is free software. It also guarantees that contributions made to the open source code cannot be abused in proprietary applications." - Android fails here because the whole Android part of Android is not copyleft. When you buy a Android phone, it may well be that everything except the kernel and a few low-level components is proprietary, closed source.

Another way to look at it is how the so-called "open" system is related to the whole GNU/Linux ecosystem that people find on their desktops and laptops... And if you look at the list of files in Maemo, you'll find a lot that is also on your Ubuntu PC. Changes made for Maemo (to fix bugs or to enhannce overall performance) will be of use for any other distribution that includes these packages (and the other way round). That's not the case with Android, which is pretty much a universe of its own and has very little in common with anything outside the Google empire.

So the bottom line is... don't compare "openness". Compare access to the source code, licensing, "being a good free software citizen",... whatever. "Open" is almost as subjective as "good" or "tasty".

Considering the context here is the SFLC it's proper to assume that open is closer to the Free Software definition than any other.

As usual with Law there is interpretation, and the spirit of what is intended. For me this translates to participation in the overall open software eco system.

The Maemo teams deeper integration into Upstream activities is what wins the open discussion with me. This is about given back as well as taking from.