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There is some software written for maemo called Knots2 (cf. http://wiki.maemo.org/Knots2) that does a pretty decent job of encoding a stream starting from any type of format to something that can be watched natively on the device or with a browser.

It's what I use to access MythTV from my N900.

No idea on how hard this would be to port to Android, though.

Unlike Apple users we N900 users can get our software from a number of places. Just because the Ovi Store isn't doing well doesn't mean there aren't plenty of other places to get good apps.

"things like double tap to fully justify a column of text in a webpage"
That's a very specific thing to be complaining about. I'm not even sure what you are getting at. Double tapping on the n900s browser zooms out the page (to the equivalent of being a 1280 width screen i believe). Double tapping again zooms in on that region. It's very intuitive and quick.
It's not what you're describing but it seems to achieve the same goal; Web pages are easily viewable on the n900. You can also install n900 versions of Firefox, Chromium or Opera if you don't like the default browser on the n900. So i don't see what you are getting at here.

As for the app store it's really just a repository, don't use the OVI store browser as that's redundant, use the App manager to browse for apps. You click app manager on the phone and you get a list of programs available from the repositories (including the commercial OVI store repository). Mame, SNES and Megadrive emulators, OpenSSH, ftpd, all the tux games, programs to turn you phone into a wireless access point, VOIP apps, all the major linux apps etc. are all downloadable from these official repositories. The n900's a full Linux system and the huge number of apps for the n900 reflects this.
I don't understand how you think there aren't many apps available. All i can think is that the official developer and extras repositories weren't added to the app manager and you browsed nothing more than the OVI store. Nokia open their phones so that there isn't one source of apps for the device, make sure you add the other well known sources. Note that's also why you never here about how Nokia killed app X for their phone. They aren't Apple. They couldn't stop a competing source of apps for their phones even if they wanted to and the OVI store is a small part of the ecosystem.

Here's some extra sources for n900 apps. Click these on your phone to add them to the App manager. The first link, the extras, is especially important as it's official and has a huge list of great apps with seemingly all the major linux apps represented. The rest i've linked here are a bit more specific and some are for beta version applications. But even if you just add the extras repository you should be giving the Android a run for it's money in the amount and quality of the applications available.
http://repository.maemo.org/extras/
http://repository.maemo.org/extras-testing/
http://repository.maemo.org/extras-devel/
http://my-maemo.com/repository/
ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/mobile
http://www.amsn-project.net/maemo
http://b-man.xceleo.org/repo/maemo-nintendo-emulators/
http://qole.org/repository

"things like double tap to fully justify a column of text in a webpage"
That's a very specific thing to be complaining about. I'm not even sure what you are getting at. Double tapping on the n900s browser zooms out the page (to the equivalent of being a 1280 width screen i believe). Double tapping again zooms in on that region. It's very intuitive and quick.
It's not what you're describing but it seems to achieve the same goal; Web pages are easily viewable on the n900. You can also install n900 versions of Firefox, Chromium or Opera if you don't like the default browser on the n900. So i don't see what you are getting at here.

As for the app store it's really just a repository, don't use the OVI store browser as that's redundant, use the App manager to browse for apps. You click app manager on the phone and you get a list of programs available from the repositories (including the commercial OVI store repository). Mame, SNES and Megadrive emulators, OpenSSH, ftpd, all the tux games, programs to turn you phone into a wireless access point, VOIP apps, all the major linux apps etc. are all downloadable from these official repositories. The n900's a full Linux system and the huge number of apps for the n900 reflects this.
I don't understand how you think there aren't many apps available. All i can think is that the official developer and extras repositories weren't added to the app manager and you browsed nothing more than the OVI store. Nokia open their phones so that there isn't one source of apps for the device, make sure you add the other well known sources. Note that's also why you never here about how Nokia killed app X for their phone. They aren't Apple. They couldn't stop a competing source of apps for their phones even if they wanted to and the OVI store is a small part of the ecosystem.

Here's some extra sources for n900 apps. Click these on your phone to add them to the App manager. The first link, the extras, is especially important as it's official and has a huge list of great apps with seemingly all the major linux apps represented. The rest i've linked here are a bit more specific and some are for beta version applications. But even if you just add the extras repository you should be giving the Android a run for it's money in the amount and quality of the applications available.
http://repository.maemo.org/extras/
http://repository.maemo.org/extras-testing/
http://repository.maemo.org/extras-devel/
http://my-maemo.com/repository/
ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/mobile
http://www.amsn-project.net/maemo
http://b-man.xceleo.org/repo/maemo-nintendo-emulators/
http://qole.org/repository

"things like double tap to fully justify a column of text in a webpage"
That's a very specific thing to be complaining about. I'm not even sure what you are getting at. Double tapping on the n900s browser zooms out the page (to the equivalent of being a 1280 width screen i believe). Double tapping again zooms in on that region. It's very intuitive and quick.
It's not what you're describing but it seems to achieve the same goal; Web pages are easily viewable on the n900. You can also install n900 versions of Firefox, Chromium or Opera if you don't like the default browser on the n900. So i don't see what you are getting at here.

As for the app store it's really just a repository, don't use the OVI store browser as that's redundant, use the App manager to browse for apps. You click app manager on the phone and you get a list of programs available from the repositories (including the commercial OVI store repository). Mame, SNES and Megadrive emulators, OpenSSH, ftpd, all the tux games, programs to turn you phone into a wireless access point, VOIP apps, all the major linux apps etc. are all downloadable from these official repositories. The n900's a full Linux system and the huge number of apps for the n900 reflects this.
I don't understand how you think there aren't many apps available. All i can think is that the official developer and extras repositories weren't added to the app manager and you browsed nothing more than the OVI store. Nokia open their phones so that there isn't one source of apps for the device, make sure you add the other well known sources. Note that's also why you never here about how Nokia killed app X for their phone. They aren't Apple. They couldn't stop a competing source of apps for their phones even if they wanted to and the OVI store is a small part of the ecosystem.

Here's some extra sources for n900 apps. Click these on your phone to add them to the App manager. The first link, the extras, is especially important as it's official and has a huge list of great apps with seemingly all the major linux apps represented. The rest i've linked here are a bit more specific and some are for beta version applications. But even if you just add the extras repository you should be giving the Android a run for it's money in the amount and quality of the applications available.
http://repository.maemo.org/extras/
http://repository.maemo.org/extras-testing/
http://repository.maemo.org/extras-devel/
http://my-maemo.com/repository/
ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/mobile
http://www.amsn-project.net/maemo
http://b-man.xceleo.org/repo/maemo-nintendo-emulators/
http://qole.org/repository

(2) few games dispite being the only phone with solid GL, and

May I present you with: DrNokSNES. Just grab ROM dumps of your favorite SNES games (that you own, of course) and they'll be with you everywhere. Controlling them on the N900's keyboard is a bit wonky* (but then everything is), so I mainly stick to turn based games like the Final Fantasies or Tactics Ogre.

It's a leetle bit buggy, but once you figure out how to work it you'll be good to go.

*If you're feeling especially geeky, you can hook a Wiimote up to your N900 and play almost anything that way.

Except that there -will- be, like there is for Maemo, a community repository where less stable software can be made available.

Sure you won't get into the Ovi store or whatnot, but you will be able to make your software available without having to pass strict checklists if you really, really want to put it out there.

Actually, there's lots of evidence that the community's QA process is a lot more stringent than Ovi's; and results in software which is better, doesn't drain the battery, doesn't waste rootfs space and generally behaves a lot better.

The biggest obstacle to Ovi inclusion (even with the recently announced opening of it to individuals) are:

• VAT registration
• No dependency on libraries in the community repos
• No Python (a comparitively large number of third party apps for Maemo are written in Python

It seems that a volunteer company (some "Nokia" if you've ever heard of them) has already done that (5th post down). No real need to do it again..

I'm hoping that they keep the open nature of Maemo/Meego on these new phones. The N900 is the first phone I've had in ages which doesn't crash all the time. Not as slick as an iphone yet, but definitely much more flexible. Nothing quite as fun as controlling your phone from it's web server via WiFi...

I've use Skype-Out on the N900 all the time without any problem. You may need to add the international prefix in order for it to work (starting with a + ). If you still have problems, head over to http://talk.maemo.org/ .

If they're such pieces of shit, where are the open standard wondrous operating systems?

Perhaps here? Or maybe even here?

Fair enough. Yes, the telepathy-spirit package that provides skype integration is close source, along with various other core packages. That said, I've only installed additional packages from open source repositories. And obviously the closed source packages like telepathy-spirit are feeding into an open source user interface.

There are several encryption programs for Nokia's Symbian phones that work over GSM, but they don't look terribly compatible even amongst one another, which has presumably stymied adoption.

These two Android apps are compatible with Zfone, which is SIP not GSM. So they should work with the commercial Zfone clients for Windows Mobile and Symbian, which covers the vast majority of smartphones outside the U.S.

I've found no Zfone port for the iPhone or BlackBerry but they're bit players outside the U.S. Maemo support has sadly not yet happened, but presumably once the MeeGo platform stabilizes.

ahh, here we go, you need this sapwood-server running first.

Oh so you're the guy who made uremote...

I put together a flashblock plugin for MicroB. (works much like Flashblock for desktop Firefox). I should probably get around to packaging it but for now it's manual installation only:

http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p=625937&postcount=3

Also it loads everything locally unlike adflashblock-css which depends on an Internet connection, so it's much faster.

I own an N900, and I had no idea there even was an app store. Every program I could possibly want is available free of charge, with only one exception (which I wrote and uploaded).
Maemo/Meego is great for demonstrating the benefits of FOSS to end users, because it has a thriving FOSS community that actively works on adding functionality to the device.

Fear not, there is always maemo. I actually heard it was better than Android and is closer to debian. I think its LGPL too. Really we just need open handsets to start community porting. Maybe some n900 users can chime in?

I have posted about it previously, but there are very strong indications that googles account system suffers from one or more bugs. There have been dozens of reports of users who have accidentally been logged into other users accounts. It is definitely possible that crackers and spammers have figured out how to exploit the security holes by now.

See http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100321162016AAZnwCC, http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=48382, http://www.google.pl/support/forum/p/gmail/thread?tid=13d02f7a7404e5f6&hl=en, http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/youtube/thread?tid=4426cc7a854b727d&hl=en, http://www.davidnaylor.co.uk/my-google-account-is-showing-someone-elses-adsense-account.html, http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Google+Docs/thread?tid=65ca8c56386ded1e&hl=en and much more...

Well, for the record, Google's security system IS BUGGY. There has been scattered reports across the internet about how users accidentally have been able to login to other peoples accounts. The problem has been reported to google multiple times on their mailing lists, but google has never given a proper response to it. They are likely afraid of the public PR disaster that would occur if people found out how insecure their google accounts really are.

References: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100321162016AAZnwCC, http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=48382, http://www.google.pl/support/forum/p/gmail/thread?tid=13d02f7a7404e5f6&hl=en, http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/youtube/thread?tid=4426cc7a854b727d&hl=en, http://www.davidnaylor.co.uk/my-google-account-is-showing-someone-elses-adsense-account.html, http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Google+Docs/thread?tid=65ca8c56386ded1e&hl=en

Err:

http://www.android.com/
http://palmwebos.org/
http://www.symbian.org/
http://maemo.org/

You might not be able to publish iPhone apps (ignoring webapps) but it's not the only smartphone on the market.

The Nokia N900's OS, Maemo 5, is based on Debian and uses apt as its package manager. You can add http://repository.maemo.org/extras/ and related repositories right in the application manager UI (which is just a fancy interface for apt). The OS updates can even be done with apt-get dist-upgrade. You can even install a chrooted real Debian environment and pull random packages from the Debian repositories. And yes, pulling stuff off of apt-get is beautiful.

You can use a higher capacity microSD card (with miniSD adapter), or use USB storage devices.

http://europe.nokia.com/support/product-support/nokia-n810/specifications

Storage

Up to 2GB internal memory Support for compatible miniSD and microSD memory cards (with extender). Supports cards up to 8GB. (SD cards over 2GB must be SDHC compatible.)

It supports SDHC (required for cards >4GB). A few years ago, when that documentation was written, the highest capacity miniSD or microSD cards available were only 8GB.

Today, there are higher capacity SDHC cards available. They still work: http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=24245

Maybe would matter which version/distribution of Linux. Maemo have a lot of software meant for touch devices, and there are tablet/cellphone (i.e. Nokia N900) that exploit it well, while at the same time gives you the old keyboard/mouse interface if you need some app not meant for touchscreen. Having a mouse don't meant that all your apps should be used only by it, and not having a hardware input device don't meant that it can't be emulated by another

You would have a point had it been done for technical reasons. And had you known what you were going on about. Maemo was never based on clutter, it predated clutter by several years and the hardware it ships on lacks 3d acceleration.

Sadly, it seems you're also out of date. Maemo5 features 3d effects, to great use. I'm not sure whether clutter was in the final design, though.

The OS is Maemo 5 "Fremantle", which is based on Debian (and BusyBox), but some of the ways it's set up aren't fully compatible with a lot of Debian standard software. I don't think you can just add the Debian ARM repositories directly and install stuff. Packages have to be tested and sometimes modified to work natively.

However, it is popular to create a real Debian environment with chroot, which works around that problem. See Easy Debian, which is a package that does all the work in setting that up, including OpenOffice.org, GIMP, LXDE and an environment you really can apt-get install most anything from the Debian mainline into.

I've had a N900 since December. I'm very happy with it. Installed Easy Debian and OpenOffice and they work quite well. There's only so much word processing I want to do on a platform that size, but it's great for modifying office email attachments on occasion. Having a spreadsheet in my pocket is quite handy too. Stylus is recommended but not compulsory. It's still in testing and there are a few headaches, like some dialogs being too tall to properly reach the buttons at the bottom, but it's already improved a lot from previous versions and I expect it to get even better.

As for the community, the main forums don't look dead to me. Have a look at the packages they offer.

The OS is Maemo 5 "Fremantle", which is based on Debian (and BusyBox), but some of the ways it's set up aren't fully compatible with a lot of Debian standard software. I don't think you can just add the Debian ARM repositories directly and install stuff. Packages have to be tested and sometimes modified to work natively.

However, it is popular to create a real Debian environment with chroot, which works around that problem. See Easy Debian, which is a package that does all the work in setting that up, including OpenOffice.org, GIMP, LXDE and an environment you really can apt-get install most anything from the Debian mainline into.

I've had a N900 since December. I'm very happy with it. Installed Easy Debian and OpenOffice and they work quite well. There's only so much word processing I want to do on a platform that size, but it's great for modifying office email attachments on occasion. Having a spreadsheet in my pocket is quite handy too. Stylus is recommended but not compulsory. It's still in testing and there are a few headaches, like some dialogs being too tall to properly reach the buttons at the bottom, but it's already improved a lot from previous versions and I expect it to get even better.

As for the community, the main forums don't look dead to me. Have a look at the packages they offer.

Seriously, what signs? In my experience Nokia's support for devices that aren't brand new is very good. Secondly, if they were to cut the support right now, what exactly prevents you from using the QT-libraries yourself? (Or installing community software that use QT-libraries) What exactly is the support you need if you are happy and the phone is open?

qgil from Nokia in Maemo forums:
"Maemo 5 has a roadmap of updates that includes more than bugfixes. It hasn't been disclosed, but the plan exists and is being executed as we speak."
"So really, if you want to contribute to the future of Maemo and the N900 then please invest your time filing/improving/voting bug reports and brainstorms, help pushing apps from Extras-testing to Extras, try/rate/comment Ovi apps, pick your preferred missing feature and collaborate with anybody willing to push it... All this is actually fun, not only for you but also for the rest of users that will benefit from the improvements you will help pushing."

You're in for a treat. The n900 is everything you think it'll be, and more. :)

If you're not already there, check out talk.maemo.org. Lots of active threads and great resources. Welcome to the club. :p

Nokia has Maemo as well, which is better than Android in so many ways. Try a N900 and you will see. There is no reason for them to go Android,

Maemo. Standard Linux (which Android is anything but) with a mostly open source stack, including touch screen optimized gui. Being standard Linux, this means you also have access to the tens of thousands of existing Linux applications, rather than just the fart app of the week coming out for Android.

As it is, it's the best phone on the market except for the application support; I'm still hoping that comes good

Are you nuts?
Go to http://maemo.org/downloads/Maemo5/.
Presently there are 149 applications for the n900 and a few via the OVI store.

BTW:
There is an effort to port Android to the n900: http://gizmodo.com/5455495/watch-a-nokia-n900-dual+boot-maemo-and-android

If you want android then buy a google phone!!!!

You are border-line trolling!

I hear that some progress is being made here: http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=38372

Now if I could just get Windows Vista booting on my TI-82!

Tell me when you're done, and I'll run it on the TI-82 on my N900. ;)

I know runs contrary to some of the other posts here but I found Firefox for the N900 to be frustratingly slow. The MicroB browser feels far more responsive. I ended up uninstalling Firefox in the end because I just didn't have any reason to use it over MicroB. But even MicroB isn't as fast as it should be - this is inherent in using Gecko, which everyone knows is slower than Webkit, and the difference is especially noticable on a mobile device. It seemed like a very odd choice for Nokia to make. Tear shows promise but is not quite there yet.

You should be using AdBlock Plus port for MicroB and Flashblock port for MicroB.

No ads, pages load faster, don't run any Flash you don't want to - and yet, you can run all the flash that you *do* want to!

You should be using AdBlock Plus port for MicroB and Flashblock port for MicroB.

No ads, pages load faster, don't run any Flash you don't want to - and yet, you can run all the flash that you *do* want to!

The first iSync plugin for the N900 came out 6 days ago. Now FF 1.0 is also out for it, I don't think it will be too long before I buy one. That thing really blows the iPhone away. But I still need it to be able to sync with my Mac.

If you want a real word processor or spreadsheet, then just bite the bullet and get N900 - it can actually run OpenOffice (UI not optimized for small screen, though... but still usable). So far as I know, this is unmatched by any competitor today, and none of them have plans to get anywhere even close in near future.

Interesting about the spirit of software freedom... I'm very much into all of this "linux stuff" for the freedom. Though, not to the point of going for Openmoko instead of the n900.

Also, the N900 is a transitional device; when Mameo goes from GTK+ to Qt, it will become incompatible with all newer Maemo devices that will be released by Nokia. That made me a bit reluctant to get it as well, I've been stung already by Nokia's tendency to make their devices obsolete.

I haven't followed Maemo 6 development or "N920" rumours much, but maybe the n900 and maemo 5 is just the right kind of device for me. Maybe the upcoming devices and OS will be more mainstream, dumbed down and tivoized...

Or maybe maemo 6 can be used on the n900, save for multi-touch and whatever other new features the new HW will have. I hope they make the extra effort for backwards compatability for the sake of not getting bad-will. I don't think nokia has said anything about it yet.

I also have an n800, on which I plan to install mer, the community effort to rescue the n8x0:s from obsoleteness. http://wiki.maemo.org/Mer

There are. And one of the most open (and up-streamed) is Maemo 5 (used on the Nokia N900). (Disclaimer: I worked on part of it)

Nokia N900 is looking better by the minute. Maemo (Linux), and theres Python port for that, so it wont be hard to code for. A Firefox browser with Flash support and generally nice specs on the hardware front. € 540 or so isnt too bad for a smartphone in that class.

n900fly

Hilarious!

Got a N900 for Christmas. The phone is a beautiful piece of hardware and a joy to use.

But... it would reboot without provocation every few minutes and got bricked within two days. It turns out these are known problems, too. So it was with a heavy heart that I sent the phone back yesterday for a refund.

Nokia shouldn't have sold the phone with such known showstopper bugs. I can only guess that the market pressure from the iPhone made them override their quality process. I believe they will have the bugs fixed within weeks, but by then I'm afraid they will have seriously damaged their reputation.

Got a N900 for Christmas. The phone is a beautiful piece of hardware and a joy to use.

But... it would reboot without provocation every few minutes and got bricked within two days. It turns out these are known problems, too. So it was with a heavy heart that I sent the phone back yesterday for a refund.

Nokia shouldn't have sold the phone with such known showstopper bugs. I can only guess that the market pressure from the iPhone made them override their quality process. I believe they will have the bugs fixed within weeks, but by then I'm afraid they will have seriously damaged their reputation.

Here are some prices from one of the cheaper web stores in Finland. Please note that these have taxes included and probably the "europeans are idiots" bonus (1 dollar = 1 euro)

• iPhone 3GS 32GB - 528 euro (+ 12 month contract with "normal" prices)
• iPhone 3G 8GB - 396 euro (+12 month contract with "normal" prices)
• HTC Hero - 489.90 euro (no contract)
• Motorola Milestone - 549.90 euro (no contract + 50 euro more for localized keyboard)
• Nokia N900 - 569.00 euro (no contract)
• Samsung Galaxy i7500 - 489.90 euro( no contract)
• Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10 Android - 749.90 euro (no contract)

Based on these it would seem that most top of the line phones actually cost around 500 - 600 euro (that is probably 500$-600$ in US) and even correlates pretty nicely with release schedule. Don't get the price on the Sony Ericsson, though it isn't actually out yet I think.

BTW: People were able to get it as cheap as $442 from Dell a while back. Don't know what is the cheapest now (nor would I buy anything from Dell :)

Well, Maemo is essentially a Debian derivative with the fully functional debian package management tools installed and configured to be used with Nokia software repositories for over the air apt-get updates & upgrades (i.e. no need to flash the device with new firmware, you'll get updates as they are made available). You can install a package from the officially supported (i.e. no need for hacks to accomplish this) list of packages to get a root shell after which you can modify sources.list to e.g. add one of the several repositories for free (OSS) goodies or even your own repository (which is really nice if you are developing for the device).

http://repository.maemo.org/

This is right now the only device that is truly open to modification and usable as an actual phone at the same time. There are many linux phones on the market but most are either intended for developers and barely functional or intended for end users and completely locked down (e.g. pretty much any Android phone). The N900 is not locked down, comes with official support to get root access, excellent linux based SDK, an excellent mozilla based browser, excellent multimedia and multitasking support, and it is a pretty good phone too.

disclaimer: I work for Nokia but just check the many independent reviewers for some more or less unanimously shared enthusiasm about what this phone can do.

if people get bluetooth hid devices going, that may be the case with the nokia n900.

You mean removing input from DisabledPlugins in /etc/bluetooth/main.conf doesn't do it for you?

http://wiki.maemo.org/Fremantle_Unsupported_Bluetooth_profiles

"Truly open-development, open-source phones like the Nokia N900..."

are you kidding me???

what is "Truly open-development, open-source" about a platform that has

* proprietary power management (bme)
* no docs for the gsm modem interface (and no source code for the apps using it)
* proprietary powervr graphics drivers
* proprietary osso-dsp-modules

read also:
https://bugs.maemo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1584
http://wiki.maemo.org/Why_the_closed_packages

i'm not so much pissed by proprietary applications as i can replace the rootfs by a free and open source one what pisses me off is the undocumented hardware used and lacking communication with upstream kernel development.
dont call this device "truly open"-blah... it is definitely NOT.

there are a few devices that strive to be as open as a linux phone should be:
openmoko tried and indeed even though the calypso is undocumented they provided a implementation of how to interface it and thanks to it one can use all of its hardware without binary blobs - NOT POSSIBLE ON THE N900!!!
then there is the FLOW by gizmoforyou which uses a gumstix overo as the base and added a telit modem for which you can download the FULL DOCS from their website - hey guys at nokia, this is the kind of modem you should have picked if you wanted your device to be called "truly open"!
the modem used in the n900 uses ISI for which no reference interpretation in oss exists.

is it only me or did the slashdot crowd forget what "truly open" means and is now all over a device that is open on the top but not if one wants to really start messing around with it?

"Truly open-development, open-source phones like the Nokia N900..."

are you kidding me???

what is "Truly open-development, open-source" about a platform that has

* proprietary power management (bme)
* no docs for the gsm modem interface (and no source code for the apps using it)
* proprietary powervr graphics drivers
* proprietary osso-dsp-modules

read also:
https://bugs.maemo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1584
http://wiki.maemo.org/Why_the_closed_packages

i'm not so much pissed by proprietary applications as i can replace the rootfs by a free and open source one what pisses me off is the undocumented hardware used and lacking communication with upstream kernel development.
dont call this device "truly open"-blah... it is definitely NOT.

there are a few devices that strive to be as open as a linux phone should be:
openmoko tried and indeed even though the calypso is undocumented they provided a implementation of how to interface it and thanks to it one can use all of its hardware without binary blobs - NOT POSSIBLE ON THE N900!!!
then there is the FLOW by gizmoforyou which uses a gumstix overo as the base and added a telit modem for which you can download the FULL DOCS from their website - hey guys at nokia, this is the kind of modem you should have picked if you wanted your device to be called "truly open"!
the modem used in the n900 uses ISI for which no reference interpretation in oss exists.

is it only me or did the slashdot crowd forget what "truly open" means and is now all over a device that is open on the top but not if one wants to really start messing around with it?

All you need to get FULL root privileges on the N900 is to download this -> http://maemo.org/downloads/product/Maemo5/rootsh/

That's it, you PWN the device.

At least you can change the kernel on N800. Hopefully even with N900 (no clue).

Though for me I cannot find a reason to change it.