Nokia gives management of apps, websites and trademarks Maemo to community

Nokia has waived the applications, websites and trademarks of Maemo, its proprietary Linux distribution for smartphones and mids. The Finnish company last released a product with a variant of Maemo in 2011, after which it focused on Windows Phone.

Nokia still owned the rights to some applications and websites around Maemo, such as maemo.org, the place where owners of, among others, the Nokia N900 from 2009 came together and tinkered with apps and firmwares. The rights now go to the Hildon Foundation, which comes from the community of Maemo fans and represents their interests. The Hildon Foundation released a statement on the matter.

Maemo was developed by the Finnish manufacturer since about 2005 as an intended successor to its Symbian operating system. It first released several mids, large smartphones without a call function, with the Linux distro and in 2009 with the first smartphone with Maemo under the name N900. Although the 2011 N9 officially ran MeeGo Harmattan, that software was a next version of Maemo. At the release, however, Nokia had already decided to switch to Windows Phone.

Nokia can no longer do anything with Maemo; after the takeover of the telephone branch by Microsoft, it is no longer allowed to make telephone-related hardware until 2016. However, the manufacturer has been hinting for some time that it will start making phones again after that date. Microsoft will soon remove the Nokia name from its Lumia devices with Windows Phone.