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N900 mobile computer (smartphone) running the Maemo operating system (photo by mackarus - CC-BY)

Maemo is a trademark of Nokia, used to describe some of their products and services. Hmm, that doesn’t explain much, does it?

Maemo is described by Nokia themselves as “an advanced Linux-based operating system designed to run on high-end Nokia mobile computers”. Even that description doesn’t help much—until you learn that what Nokia calls a mobile computer, others might call a smartphone.

The Maemo operating system is built around a Linux kernel together with X windows and a bunch of other open source technologies such as gstreamer and SQLite, topped off with a browser built around the Mozilla rendering engine.

Nokia calls Maemo an open-source platform, but how open is it really? At the top of the software stack, Nokia pre-installs a few proprietary applications (such as the media player interface), but these can easily be replaced by open source alternatives. And at the bottom of the software stack, there are a few proprietary binary-only hardware drivers. Nokia has made a big effort to open-source low-level software components where possible, and to arrange to make them freely redistributable (in binary form) in other cases.

The end result is to make Maemo the most open, and the most hackable, cellphone operating system yet. But, as we discovered with Android, it’s not enough for the software to be open source if the device it runs on is locked down.

Previous versions of Maemo ran on Nokia’s internet tablets. The current version of Maemo (2009) is Maemo 5, and Nokia’s “lead device” for Maemo 5 is their N900 mobile phone (or mobile computer if you like). The N900 comes pre-loaded with Maemo 5, plus the following software freedoms:

• Nokia does not block the user from gaining “root access” (which allows complete access to the software of the device)
• Any of the proprietary applications can be removed or replaced
• New versions of the operating system can be “flashed” onto the device
• Applications can be installed from any source, and do not need to be approved by Nokia
• Maemo can even be removed, and a completely different operating system installed on the device

That level of freedom, although standard for desktop computers, is quite unprecedented for a 3G phone.

Nokia is hoping that a vibrant community of software developers will make use of this openness, and develop new and creative applications for Maemo that have not been seen before in mobile devices. To this end, Nokia maintains maemo.org as a “creative hub” for collaboration and discussion centred around Maemo.

There is, however, a downside to this. Software development for Maemo is not as simple as it would be for a more constrained platform such as Android, Symbian or the iPhone. The libraries and build tools are more complex, but also more powerful. On the flip side, the fact that Maemo is based on Linux opens up the possibility to recompile thousands of existing Linux applications (with minor changes to adapt them for phone use). Already, major applications such as OpenOffice have been ported to Maemo devices.

And for the person who just wants to use a smartphone rather than program it, the Maemo browser provides the “Full Internet Experience” without needing to resort to cut-down mobile versions of web pages.