Wow, what a response. I suppose you never expect the Spanish Inquisition. Anyway, what exactly is "my question"? I did not start this thread. I was simply agreeing with the person who wondered why Android gets badmouthed so much, said I find it very annoying, and expressed my fondness for both systems. Perhaps it came out differently then.

You wrote a pretty good, long post, but I can't help to get the feeling that you imply that users of Android / other mobile OS's are automatically clueless and just "don't get that Maemo is Linux". I've been using Linux for a quite while, so I get it just fine, thanks. Personally I'm not even that interested in this development issue, I'm one the "evil users" who don't contribute back by coding (well, I do help out on some other forums, that's a way of contributing, I think) but alright: Maemo is surely more attractive for the open-source developers hanging around these forums, of course. Might as well admit that Java is probably pretty attractive to a lot of other types of developers, there's plenty of software, commercial and non-commercial, available for Android. And there's the Android NDK now for including some native C/whatever coding parts too, Googl....BIng it up if you want. Not that I really care. But most of all, developers aside, users (like me and I suppose you) typically get a device based on what it "can do" and not "what it's capable of". And no, all the software available for Android doesn't "suck" as some people have noted. Maemo Extras is not exactly the treasure trove of stable software either, there are a few gems in both the Market and Extras.

Anyway, the original issue was "why is there so much hostility against Android", not "what are the differences between Android and Maemo". I think we can toss out the technical issues (slowness etc, new phones coming are very fast), but the philosophical "Android's not as free as Maemo" differences seem to be at the core of this dislike of Android, if we go by the point you seemed to be making all along there. Perhaps Android seems like such a big threat here because it is open, just not quite to the extent that Maemo is. Sounds like good psycho-babble anyway. The benefits of being free, I actually think Benny wrote it best the first page when he described his own bug fixing, that's as good a "benefit of free software" description as I've ever heard. Still, to say that this freedom makes Maemo a better platform for everybody, which is the implication I read in your post, Chris (is it Chris?), seems like a bit of a stretch. In a few weeks from now, when the new N900 users will start flocking here asking "when will you support Spotify", will this "no but you're free to try porting your Debian software to Maemo" really make them any happier? If a user wants Spotify, is he clueless to get a phone that supports it? Maemo's potential is pretty much unlimited, but no, I don't think you're correct in comparing the number of Linux developers to the number of other various mobile OS developers. Most Linux developers are not and won't be doing anything related to Maemo. Programs still need to be ported to Maemo (with what at least used to be called Hildonizing), you don't get every open source program under the sky on your phone any time soon. Take a look at Maemo Extras to see how many programs actually have been brought over. I've been looking at it for a few years, haven't lost my eye sight scrolling the lists yet. We have the potential to have a lot of Linux software available and every once in a while ther'es something really cool that you just would not get on another platform, which is one of the things I really like about Maemo, but don't fool yourself into thinking you'll be browsing a list as long as Ubuntu's Synaptic anytime soon. Unfortunately it might be that this ease of porting applications instead of recoding them (like Android requires you to) will be a much smaller selling point than many hope for, who knows. A lot of desktop software just isn't very well suited to a phone display anyway, and as a final slap in the face of the Freedom Agenda, to get some of the truly interesting commercial software, Nokia is introducing DRM to the device (yes, you can disable it, I know). But seriously, aren't we still being just a tad hypocritical here? This is not a completely free device either. Get a Pandora if that's what you want.

Back to Android: if Canonical - that's the company behind Ubuntu, btw, since we're treating each other like 1st graders anyway - is developing software to make sure you can run Android applications on Desktop Ubuntu and sees tremendous upsides to that, why should the Maemo community seem this hostile against Android? Canonical sees benefits in supporting Android, yet Maemo doesn't? I assume I'm not the only one who'd love to have a Maemo phone that supported Android apps. Spaceman Shuttleworth has taken Debian from a geeky server OS and turned it into something that I installed for my 70-year-old parents to get away from fixing their Windows machine once a month. If he says Android apps are worth having on a Desktop, maybe they are.

Anyway, I'm clearly outnumbered in my "give Android a break" view here. I'm just baffled at what a harsh reaction there is to saying something as simple as this. I really don't want to get into a pissing contest between Android and Maemo, I don't give a rat's ***, I wish them both well and whether somebody prefers one over the other doesn't really matter much to me, and naturally all developers will choose what to develop for themselves, good for you. But since I do enjoy hanging around here to see if there's something new to put on the N810 and to hear about new Maemo devices, what matters to me, is the annoying habit here of bashing Android whenever it comes up - is it too much to ask for people to accept it's here to stay and to admit that, for all your overflowing Nokia-love, the competition pushing Maemo onward really can't hurt now, can it? Nokia didn't exactly move at lightspeed putting out the N900. Let's see a few more Android phones come and see if the next N9XX comes out a bit sooner.

Remember, these are not the "Maemo developers Forums", these are for users as well, it's not a crime to just want to use these things without wanting to compile software for them. Linus Torvalds called Microsoft-hatred a disease a while ago. Might it be time to give Google/Android a break too? Just sayin'.

As I asked in my OP as I have not looked into Android I just wondered why some have an intense dislike to it. As for someone saying it was a silly question, oh get over your self. I always tell my kids if you dont know ask, as there is never such as thing as a silly question. From a proud father of two straight A students who asked questions to find out the things they didnt know.

Well, we lie to our kids a lot, don't we? Of course there are silly questions. That doesn't mean they shouldn't be asked

I think one more thing about Maemo is the hardware.
You control it. Nokia WANTS you to do with it whatever you like.
It's your device, you paid for it, you control it.

To do the same on an Android device, you've got to root it (and this is illegal, AFAIK). Same happens with the iPhone. You've got to Jailbreak it.
Again, illegal.

A Nokia tablet is yours and you can choose to run whatever you like on it.

I don't think we can toss out the technical issue so quickly. Bloat tends to always be a problem, and tossing newer and faster hardware will never solve it if the OS itself and its programs are not optimized for that platform. Even maemo suffers from a problem to that extent when software is ported from desktop Linux. What's the point with specs for a device that are say greater than the n900 if the device itself runs slower than the n900 due to the chugging of the programs? And if Android sticks with java only (though I did read about being able to program in C soon I think) than it will never be optimized by virtue that Java was meant to be a cross-platform language.

I don't have a problem with Android (and as I said before, I think it's going be the winner in the long run). But for me they still have alot of problems they need to sort out (including openness to an extent since I do like the ability to modify my devices to my liking) before I would choose Android over Maemo.

Ah, yes, I totally agree. What I was talking about was that these technical issues (slowness etc.) are not why people here are hostile toward Android, the attitude comes from the "not being free enough" aspect, or so it seems to me. I totally agree with what you wrote here.

By the way (not directed at you, Laughing Man), jailbreaking and rooting are not illegal anywhere as far as I know. Apple might void your warranty, don't know/care. If you brick your device flashing Mer/whatever, Nokia won't pat your head either if it's out of warranty. Just so you know.

The dislike is the classic 'us versus them', the same basic mechanism of 'racism' and fanboism. For whatever reason, humans have a tendency to compare groups of things, often using the perceived virtues of their own group and flaws of others' as indicators of superiority and inferiority respectively.

The fact that android is competition is enough to make it a target, enough to cast it into the role of the inferior outsider. We've even seen infighting in the form of N800 vs N810, etc. Sadly no amount of arguing will sway the minds of individuals convinced that Maemo is better because <insert argument here>. To see past this, they will have to grow to a point where their views are not quite so black-and-white and then re-examine the situation from a vantage of improved clarity and decreased bias.

{:^|~

If Android allowed "direct" C programming and more hardware access- that would be HUGE. The game emulators already do some of the leg work in C, but the weak link is still there with the byte code layer.

An Amiga emulator would rock on a Sholes .... Well, on 1ghz Dragon it would

Wait a minute, who are we kidding? Doubt this will happen. The key devs for Android rely on the Java layer for too many things within the framework. Allowing C would be a revolution of Android. I do not mean this as a good thing, but more a complete change of their current framework (the framework IS Android).

BatPenguin, I was referring to kamakazikev24's question. I don't find any question silly if its seeking an answer. I'm just saying most of the membership here is philosophically geared towards a particular type of ecosystem that is robust and as open as possible, and for them, the Android/Maemo question may seem silly. I answer silly questions, too, but yours was not, and now you have at least my viewpoint, which is how many people here presumably feel to some degree.

I'm a question asker, and don't care if its silly. I'm an information whore, so...

And I LIKE Android. Used to write for a now defunct non-profit Andriod site. Just not in the same league with Maemo, just like the iPhone OS isn't in the same league as Mac OSX.

True, Android doesn't specifically forbid it (though we have seen Google bend to the will of some telcos regarding banning VOIP applications). But then again the app store is not the only method of getting apps so your still good. But then again with their recent actions again the modding community (yes, yes I know it's because they were distributing Google apps and now they have a backup workaround, etc..etc..) I wouldn't say Google and friends are so welcome to you mucking around either. It remains to be seen if Nokia will be more like them later on. I hope not. I understand Google's point, but what is the point of owning an Android phone if you can't use the standard Google applications, isn't that what Google gets out of it besides licensing deals with companies? To get you to use their apps and remain stuck in their ecosystem?