Mer isn't exactly doing that much software development, compared with integration of existing software (as is typical in a distro). There is some of it, to be sure, in the forms of process & integration tools, but stuff like that, you're going to need specialised hackers to be able to use anyway, so that will most likely involve contribution.

Note that I never said:
- that it should necessarily be closed source
- that everything vaguely UI related should be treated in this fashion

I don't agree with either of those points at all. They impede the community and small scale hackers for no real "gain". I completely agree that it gets in the way.

The exact examples I mentioned were related to artwork and branding, etc - and to repeat exactly what I was trying to say: they should be open source, but licensed under a somewhat restrictive licence like creative commons non-commercial, meaning that they can be reused to the ends of time by community/hackers playing around in a garage, but they can't be used in a commercial way without an alternative licensing agreement being in place ensuring that leeching isn't a feasible business model.

You're more or less right. It shouldn't surprise you that I support this model of open source releasing combined with commercial "support"/negotiation to provide a way to earn money on top of it in order to further development.

This is, I think, one of the important roadblocks to solve. MeeGo never figured it out: the UI design specifications were always closed, despite efforts to open them, the roadmap process into making changes to them always seemed to hit a completely dead end in bugzilla. In practice, you could fix bugs, but if you had any sort of an itch to scratch in UI, you hit a wall.

Assuming that there will be some form of OSS UI, how is that going to be handled with a seperate "handset" project? Is a company expected to pick those pieces up, branch them to do things the way they want with their designs, and release them, and hope the community picks the useful bits back?

That model strikes me as wasteful, but I really do wonder how else to get around the "UI designer says no" approach that stifles community innovation and growth so often.

(And no, I don't think "add a configuration option" solves that problem. You'd just end up with many, many options, increasing test/bloat weight as usual.)

I simply don't care if the UI is closed, I can replace it with another one (e.g. xterm ). Now, if the drivers are closed, I have no way to install a newer kernel, which in turns will preclude me from installing newer applications (which sadly will require the forever-broken-fad-of-the-day-only-available-with-the-bleeding-edge-kernel).

Why should it be? I have 10 years old PCs still doing their duty, why should I replace a mobile device many times more powerful than that in 2 years?
Oh, I see, the closed drivers force me to buy the new! improved! one, since there's no way to update the old one.
Thanks, but no thanks, I won't buy into a business model that only tries to screw the customer.

Don't mix PC industry with mobile industry. It's not the same, not even close. The way things are marketed and distributed are very different. I don't thik that anyone here uses 10 years old mobile.
And for the rest, thats why I said that it all depends on how the company is willing to treat there own products and there own customers. It's up to them to decide if the want "I'll screw U once" approach or if they want customers that will come for more.
And I sad 2 years because it's the most common contract length and then everybody signs a new one and buy a new phone. And 2 years of propper support would be something that we still haven't seen from any manufacturer (well, maybe Apple. I don't know exactly what was the latest update original iPhone got and how many of "new" features it got with it). Every other simply pretends that the cetrain device never existed after 6 months or so. Also it's worth noticing that carriers are also guilty for that, maybe even more than manufacturers but still..........I was screwed with P990, then with satio, then with N900.......... So yes, if I get a propper support for only 2 years I'm all in.

It's impossible to have a fully open OS and to be a manufacturer at the same time and to be something on the market. Sooner or later someone will just take that and put it on some cheeper HW and that's the end.
OK, google created "open" OS but the reason for that is not to please users or manufactures but as a tool for selling adds through their services. I'm not interested in that. And I'm also not interested in gazzilion cheep craplets and mobiles from this year which are inferior to my N900 but they does exist because they can use google's OS for free.

I think BasysKom and Jolla should cooperate and create the contacts and chatintegration on the new mobile instead of reinvent the wheel a third time...

Basyscom's peregrine is opensource and the app can be found on nemomobile.

http://wiki.peregrine-communicator.o...e+Contact+List

why is there a MeeGo logo at the bottom? in which meego version has this been used before?

Perhaps I'm misreading your statement, but Peregrine was released for MeeGo quite a while back store.ovi.com link...

Yeah sorry i just got confused

All i want is Jolla to work together with community allow opinions to matter. And accept out improved code or mods.

This kind of collaboration would be a winner!!!

Are you going to use this?
http://batmax.com/products-mobile.php

How it works
http://batmax.com/technology-overview.php

Mobile burn review
http://www.mobileburn.com/review.jsp?Id=445

edit: Well maybe this is questionable
Anyone want to test it out?

That looks... Very... errr? When will these be availble from QVC?