I was an owner of a N9 and really enjoyed the OS. Most of the employees that developed Maemo and MeeGo are carrying on at jolla.com. They still have not shipped a phone yet and I have been following them for nearly 2 years now.

As much as I love the close to open source atmosphere and very good UI of the N9, Elop is right. Android turned making phones into a commodity. The only place where money can be made is by providing an ecosystem. Customers demand an ecosystem too. Nokia was losing market share so fast that as Elop said they were on a "burning platform". I am not sure they had the might anymore to create a MeeGo/Maemo ecosystem in time to save them.

I really wish that Nokia would have continued MeeGo development but I understand the decision to can it too. Nokia for many years was offering contradictory statements and making half assed partnerships. So they had to say we are going all in and all of our resources are behind Windows Phone. Developers got burnt several times. Even with Maemo they suddenly partnered with Intel's mobile OS and had to spend a year porting stuff with no apparent gain to customers. So I wish Jolla well, but Nokia did what they had to do.