I will try to get answers for you today, specially about the guarantee.

The DDP team has to go to the queue of N900 deliveries like anybody else. The sales delay affected them indirectly. I couldn't especulate on dates and neither can they.

This DDP has got some problems and surely next time we will approach it differently. But you also need to look it within its context:

- Most remarkable community developers active during the Fremantle timeline got a loaned device well before the sales start. This had been the complaint number 1 in previous programs.

- Many of the active community contributors got a loaneddevice in the Summit.

- We are still being generous loaning devices in Maemo developer events.

- More developers will get a loaned device as soon as I get them for distribution http://wiki.maemo.org/Fremantle_Developer_Device_Queue

- We are still including non-developers in this program, which is an exception in Nokia and maybe somewhere else.

There is time to make a balance and an exercise of lessons learned for the next program, but probably the thing could be as simple as

- Help community developers getting their hands dirty with the Harmattan pre-releases.

- Help promising community developers joining Maemo developer events.

- Help champion community contributors joining Maemo events.

- Organize a contest to give additional chances to those with some merits to contribute.

- Get interesting deals cutting down entry costs for anybody loving Maemo and having difficulties paying the full prie of a device.

- Maybe something like a maemo.org voucher for contributors with +nnn karma can be done.

And leave Forum Nokia for Forum Nokia users. It will be your choice to join their programs or not.

Thanks for your feelings, but what is happening is precisely the opposite. Due to the feedback and demand the N900 has got we decided to have a more polished release targeting a wider audience, even if at the cost of a later sales start. The rest is a consequence of this decision, including some of the problems you are reporting here.

There is another way to look at this for those explicitely saying that they were not interested in the N900: despite this fact you got an invitation for a device discount. I have never got such invitation from companies selling products I dislike and I wonder whether you have better experiences. Still, you got an invitation because no matter what you think about the N900, Maemo 5 and the Nokia teams we value your past contributions to this community.

So yes, confirmed. DDP devices don't have guarantee. The reason is that they are supposed to be used for development, and not as primary devices.

Also, they tell me they have got A LOT of extra requests from people not in the invitation list. So please think it twice before posting email addresses to public forums. Now you see why I didn't include them in my initial post.

qgil: can we also get some kind of timeline for DDP orders (when they will be shipped)?

That's a pretty poor reason.

Especially because this device program includes maemo.org contributers more than developers...

That's the one we have. If you are a developer unhappy about this argument feel free adding yourself at http://wiki.maemo.org/Fremantle_Developer_Device_Queue

If you are not a developer then I'm sorry but we have nothing better to offer this time.

It's true I have never had such an invitation from other companies although I have been involved in other companies developer/beta programs, but I have to be honest in saying that in all my dealings with other technology companies they have been more open, transparent and willing to communicate with community members/developers so in that respect I have had better experiences - the DDP process has been something of a nightmare from start to finish.

As for my comments about Nokia letting you down, I'm fairly sure UK buyers might disagree with you right now (see other threads).

Does it make sense for eligible people who are not going to take advantage of the DDP offer to somehow give it back so it can be redistributed to interested people on the queue? If the budget and devices have been allocated it seems a shame to let them go unused, at least if the logistics are not too complicated.

That reasoning still doesn't make sense. If I need it for development and it breaks, it is end of development. Not good.

Or maybe you meant - DDP is currently targeted to big companies with plenty of cash who will simply get another device or has more of them. This is a bug and changes are needed. If Nokia focuses on open source now it makes more sense to support independent developers.