I've never been able to find anything official either, certainly not on their websites.

So where did this come from? Or is it just wishful thinking? Does anyone have a source quoting a Nokia official?

Of course not. Blithely ignoring the contents of other peoples posts is what I'm supposed to do, right? More importantly, your sentence was phrased such that I read it not as a dig against xda-devs but against google (suggesting that because of that incident Android was less open.)

You misread what I said. GA noted that Maemo was more open due to its governance, which is true. The community has a lot of say in what happens. However, how much "power" the community has isn't immediately obvious, and it doesn't appear to be strong enough to quell ridiculous fearmongering regarding the future of the N900.

What you said about Maemo is a given. I wasn't talking about Maemo itself.

Yeah.. I just have NO idea how you got that from:
Oh, then yes.. in this case I agree with you. I like Maemo more for it's open governance, however agree fully that it's based operating environment is more closed.

While I would prefer that to be fixed.. I still see Maemo as the better choice.

Hello Maemo talk,

I just took a look at an N900 in store, and it looks interesting. There's a promotion on N900 until tomorrow (100euro off) so I need to make up my mind on whether to get it or not fast...

Could someone please tell me if Maemo 6 would be supported on N900 or not? If it's not, I probably would never buy a Nokia phone again.

Thanks!

Subtle difference in reading. Not relevant in any case.

Well yes, it's essentially the only choice. Which is why I got my N900 and have zero regrets about it and can only facepalm at all the fearmonger threads.

Teemax,

Your guess is a good as anyones.

AFAIK Nokia did not release an official statement that Maemo 6 will run on N900. They also did not release a statement that it won't.

I wouldn't say it's the only choice.. depends on what's important to you. I don't facepalm at "fearmonger" threads if that's what you're calling this because there is good info here and valid concerns about a device being left behind rather quickly after it was released.

If updates for the next 2 years are more important than access to your phone and an "open" community - then Android is the choice you would make as a consumer. If the more open OS, and a more free community outweigh a habit of the parent company to abandon projects... then Maemo is where it's at.

Just because there are a lot of "N900 FTL, Android iz teh bomb!" crap threads doesn't mean they are *all* that way. There is a valid point here.. it's just falling on deaf ears to anyone that matters.. that's all.

I've previously stated what happened with my N95 with a flip of a switch from Nokia (loosing its most marketed functionality in my country). To say that I was dissatisfied would be a gross understatement. Yet, despite all that, I still ended up with N900. So far, at least in the past ~15 years, my experience with Nokia has been somewhat sour-sweet (one device awesome, one device crap), but that's usually how end-user dealings with companies are, and I don't think I can name more than a few companies that never f-ed me up. And I'm perfectly fine with that. That's just the way it is.

I'm just trying do differentiate myself from the resident whiners and express my point of view that goes a fair bit beyond the device in question.

In the past few months, and especially in the past few weeks since I've had the pleasure to dive in it directly, I felt in love with the Maemo platform. N900 is probably one of the best gadgets I've ever had pleasure to own, period. And even if Nokia is to declare that Harmattan won't be supported on the N900, and even if couple of bugs I find mighty annoying, or a couple of essential missing features are not to be fixed on it EVER, I'd still buy it. Even at its current state, it quite fulfills most of my needs, certainly more than anything pocketable out there, and I don't regret giving 630€ for it, not for a second. So, most of the whining directed towards N900, crying how `this will be my last Nokia if...` and similar sorts of childish emotional blackmails certainly ain't my cup of tea.

However, naturally, I do feel as a part of the Maemo community, and I do care what will happen with it in the future. And for it to have any future, IMHO, some issues must be ironed out. It's irresponsible for Nokia to treat N900 as a side-project now when it does have a `critical mass` of users - at this point, I'd argue, that N900 is more important for the acceptance of the Maemo platform than the next device. It's not that there will be no new users in the future, and it's not that whenever their device with Maemo 6 comes out it won't get its own `critical mass`, but by turning their focus away from N900 and towards the next device they will alienate plenty of Maemo early-adopters. And it will leave far greater dent in the Maemo platform acceptance than ever before. People will be rightfully disappointed if their `new shiny preciousss` ends up as Nokia's expensive experiment. And those people will advise their friends to stay clear from Nokia, and what's more saddening, from the Maemo itself. And with the present market and fierce competition in this area, Maemo will have a hard time to get through, so the public outrage would be the last thing it needs. I would like dearly for Maemo to succeed for a number of reasons that cannot even fit this board, and that's why I am concerned with the current status, and I'm asking Nokia to give the N900 more support. It will pay up in the long run for the both sides - Nokia and it's users.

And that is just from the user perspective. When I switch to developer perspective things get even more problematic. I've contributed to numerous more or less successful FOSS projects, and I actually make a living by developing open-source solutions or at least partially open-source solutions. Maemo as a platform, even if not as opened as I'd like it to be and as general opinion is, simply begs to dive in. But the bar for a developer is slightly higher than the one for a mere consumer - while the latter requires a simple money investment, the former also requires the time familiarizing with the platform, SDK, its quirks and glitches, its limitations... And without a clear picture of what will become of Maemo it's not very persuasive argument for a developer to jump in on the bandwagon. If the Maemo platform ends up as a catastrophic failure (I'm almost certain it won't, but you never know...) it's hours and hours wasted, and that's what professional developers are trying to avoid. I'm not talking just about me, I'm talking about big developers that are in the end what will define it's success on the market. And so far, Nokia seems too quiet on addressing the rising concerns about QT portability, the future GTK+ support, and such, not to mention how the platform will evolve and what will be required from the developers to stay in the game. How can I be sure that I won't need to rewrite my app from scratch to make it work in the future versions of Maemo? I'm not even sure that all the time I invest in exploring the Maemo structure will be of any merit on the future Maemo platform. Sure, we have a rough road map, we have more-or-less open Bugzilla, heck, we even have some of the core developers on this board, but that's just not enough, or at least is not assuring enough for major developers to dive in...

Without a more positive feedback and definite support from Nokia themselves, one has to ask if they are indeed serious on bringing the Maemo to fulfill its potential, or are we just serving as guinea pigs for some Nokia's side project that might as well never get to a place we know it could belong.

Just my 2¢...

I would really like to see the iPhone 3GS commercial saying "Still no multitasking!"

Still, on non-marketing level, I feel Nokia has been pretty open about this not being a "full package" and more targeted to early adopters.

Anyway, here is an old article that quotes Anssi Vanjoki...
http://www.mobilenewscwp.co.uk/News/...ject_n900.html

Assuming M6 ever becomes available for the N900, I can give my N900 to my brother while I trade up to the new M6 device (he tends to upgrade on a cycle about 12-18 months behind me and typically takes my old phone, currently an N85). With my N900, my brother can continue to buy more M6 applications from the Ovi Store as they become available, and I can do the same on my new M6 device.

However if the N900 can't run M6, and it won't be compatible with all the new apps in Ovi Store then while my brother may still want it, the selection of apps in Ovi Store that are available to him will steadily become more limited and in turn the income generated from him will begin to approach zero. Or my N900 may go into a drawer (I'm a hoarder, don't ask) if some of the more annoying bugs are never fixed in M5 as I won't want to be held responsible for giving him a sucky phone (he's not interested in being a Maemo beta tester), but either way Nokia will not see any more money from my N900, whereas it could continue to be a revenue generator if it could be given a new lease of life with M6.

The competition have recognised that while compatibility across devices may lead to reduced income from device sales (compared to the old "obsolete quickly, sell many" device mentality), this multi-device compatibility massively increases the size of the potential market for application sales AND it means that content suppliers can target many more end users, making the platform more popular which in turn leads to more device sales. Everyone is happy.

Literally every iPhone application works on every iPhone model - iPhone developers are not faced with having to choose if they want to support just the latest 3GS model ("and to hell with the other 20m+ non-3GS devices, didn't care about them anyway!") It's why the iPhone is so attractive to developers and content publishers alike - it's a stable, progressive platform and not one that chucks the baby out with the bath water with each OS release.

Leaving the N900 stuck on M5 with no M6 compatibility just makes it all the harder to convince developers and content providers that they should support the new M6 device and M6 OS, whereas making M6 available for the N900 means there will be a ready and willing client base (ie. market) from the word go.

Not making M6 available to N900 owners would be just sheer bl00dy madness.

Anyway, last comment from me on the subject for the time being.