backporting software is not the issue, but backporting Maemo 6 as a whole.
If nokia were to develop Maemo 6 solely for the Snapdragon, they would have to maintain two branches of code for the lower system stuff, which they won't do.

sure you can just recompile most of the userspace apps, but optimizations on the system level require a lot more effort.

Which makes me curious as to what extent there are actual -code optimizations- for the A8, versus optimizations to GCC.

Considering the whole of Maemo exists in userspace, I'm still trying to see what's so wildly different about Snapdragon's ARM branch from the Cortex A8 line.

i am with you, love landscape mode! thats the way i want it to be.

disclaimer: i cannot provide any facts, i'm merely speculating.
and "userspace" was probably the wrong word

i imagine the main reason would be power management.
most of system libraries like libalarm, pulseaudio, but especially the connectivity subsystems need to know how to deal with different power saving states.

also, i'm not sure if rewriting drivers is such a trivial task...

Janne Heikkinen announced in the Maemo Summit that Maemo 6 will be based in OMAP 3. http://www.slideshare.net/peterschne...ogy-highlights

Well it was definitely going to be an OMAP of some sort. I don't see Nokia using a Qualcomm device any time soon!

Well it's all open. With Samsung having 45nm 1ghz for OMAP3 that supports 1080p and got same release time frame as OMAP4. Not too sure that Nokia will be example using that processor thought.

Just to make sure on the same page - we're not talking about the theoretical ability to make things run on different hardware. We're talking about Nokia doing the backport of Maemo. Now, if they are reluctant to commit to a backport to something that uses a SoC from the same family (OMAP3), I would see zero chance of them committing to the level of effort a new kernel and driver port would require. And good kernel/driver support is a big deal in the embedded world, a running state is just half of the work, them comes power management, etc.

One problem now for N900 and Maemo is market share. If Nokia get's to defensive they will be overrunned. In the Linux world the latest stable rules. So an early release of Maemo 6 would make people adopt the Maemo OS better.

Now they are competing with Android which will have pretty fast release cycle. Nokia need to get on the train if they not want to lose.

Ubuntu which also are based on Debian have 6 month cycles.. That would be a good measure for Maemo too. They can't keep the old way of releasing with a new device. That will make people get bored. They will look on their neighbor (droid) who always will have the latest and best. And when the times come switch and never look back.

The Maemo user could try to install other OS's but as long as it's not native it will not work for a longer amount of time.

This is how i reason right now. I want Maemo but on a better device than N900. I do not know if i will wait for N920 or if i just go with SE-X10 who have a snapdragon cpu.

AlMehdi speak for yourself
i thick n900 is very powerful and can run maemo 6 and beyond
stop killing new product your problem that it is resistive screen dis and advantage each technology is different i prefer resistive because you use figure and stylus and physical keyboard capacitive only finger that's why multi touch

stop comparing iPhone with the (super computer) Nokia n900
all we need is maemo 6 and more apps much much more game
the n900 is the best thing since the Nokia n95 and the e90 in my option