Is there any level on which this decision makes sense in light of Nokia's direction?

It makes a perfect sense because Elop can't fire all linux developers at once. It's just impossible under the law. So he has to find them a useless work for an year or two.

Consistency? What's that?

Everything is consistent. They are going to kill linux devlopment, just can't do it in one month.

Does Nokia have any strategic direction at all?!

Yes. Microsoft.

The law in Russia clearly states that any statement in ANY agreement that goes aginst the law is void.

I just tried to create google plus account and they won't continue unless they either: send me an SMS or call my mobile phone. And all mobile phones are registered to person here in Russia. It does not matter what online name the profile has, it's enough to tell the police mobile phone number and they know exactly where to go to beat the shit out of somebody with dfferent political views... Of couse it's extremely easy and cheap to buy anonymous SIM card and an old used phone (to avoid leaving my personal communicator's IMEI in cellular tower's logs). I think I'm going to do that just to have a spare identity.

Dalvik?

...but what about fixing that f.. networkmanager instead? It's still broken in many ways.

% man uzbl
No manual entry for uzbl

They call it unix way? WTF? I want to know how to use it, I type man uzbl and what? No man page?

Pathetic.

No? Then it's not a browser at all. Today it's impossible to browse the net without eazylist & co. It makes NO sense to change your browser if you switch and immediately get hit with shitloads of ads. That's exactly why I did not switch from Firefox to Opera, no matter how fast Opera is (and was). I don't want to maintain my own list of adblocks, other people did it well. I just want to be subscribed to the best up-to-date set of rules and only Firefox does this seamlessly.

Ayn Rand, "Atlas shrugged" describes exactly what's going on in Russia right now. Real workers are underpaid and nobody is interested in doing things properly. Most probably it's a result of gross incompetence and lack of maintenance.

Some years ago Moscow blacked out because a transformer exploded and burned out. Everything stopped. I'm a network sysadmin in a big retail chain here and I remember watching shops go black, one by one until our main office internet connection collapsed. They said it was old transformer station exploded. Now they again say that it was an explosion of the transformer station. But I believe it's not just faulty equipment, but just exactly what's described by Rand.

Actually Vi is really friendly if you touch type already. Just take some time to learn Vi commands.