[MeeGo-community] Fwd: PCWorld: Why Nokia Is in Deep Trouble With MeeGo (should someone reply to this article?)

[Milo van der Linden]

I am no developer. When it comes to smartphones, I am simply a user. I
do however have the strong philosophy that source should be open and
knowledge should be available without discrimination.

I decided to buy an android device 5 months ago. First I had been
tipping my seat waiting for Nokia to come with a meego powered device,
be it buggy or not, I would have bought it. But as the end of my
operator contract drew near, there was no sign of a new Nokia device
and buying a N900 wasn't possible in my region.

The biggest thing about android is that although the core OS is open,
drivers are all closed. Every device vendor (HTC, Samsung and others)
takes the OS, wraps in the closed drivers and sell their phones. And
this is in my opinion the biggest pain. If my Samsung Galaxy S is slow
or buggy in some way, I have to wait for Samsung to fix drivers or
provide me with a upgrade to a newer version of android. This makes me
dependend. As dependend as I would be with a iPhone. And I hate being
dependend on others.

My best bet? Nokia could win a race when they would decide not to
follow the android model of "grab the os, build your own drivers" but
would truly provide an open source (including drivers) mobile
platform. This would surely accelerate security, bug-fixing, upgrading
and having the best value for money. It would draw a large spectrum of
developers. Remember the Neo Freerunner? It is a terrible phone, but
it was completely sold out on all instances

But again, this is merely my opinion. And I am just a user ;-)