I think i will call that opensource-spirited and openly developed software as "Free software".

Overall, whole thing sounds like another rehash of free-as-of-price vs. open-source vs. free/libre talk. Some people just don't get the difference, especially between last two.

more like if you don't know your way well enough.
someday i managed to break portage (screwed up python and more) and half the system for good too but fixed it anyway (at worst, you can find working pre-compiled binaries on net as recovery starting crutch). it only comes down to your skill and patience. my Gentoo survived through 3 HDDs, several MBs and CPUs since its initial installation on old x86_64 AMD-based system. relocation as easy as archiving and extracting everything in another place. x86 CPUs are pretty compatible - once i copied it on Intel-based laptop just for a hell of it and it ran as usual.

Linux systems run and survive as you able to make them so unless your particular distribution made by random-shit-patching hack-loving short-sighted monkeys but even in that case - it's you who installed it.

And what a hell this should do with "Linux" at all ?

Granted, it runs Linux Kernel but everything else have nothing... _nothing_ to do with what people (and looks like you are not an exception) refer to when they say "Linux". Everything else Google made from scratch. And on Java. That Java: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/java-trap.html http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/javascript-trap.html
And even its in-Kernel bits were ditched from mainstream Kernel for failing in quality and lack of support.
"Linux's chaos and complexity"... riiight. Someone, prescribe anti-inflammatory to that man, stat !

And Nokia. Nokia has bought and support Qt, most awesome multiplatform pure C/C++-and-more toolkit, and is cooperating with Intel so tight that they actually have discontinued their "Maemo" product in favor of merged project "MeeGo". Both if which, by the way, have real repositories and not this cut-down malware-infested crap. And you don't need to search for cryptic instructions and have telepathic powers to put your hands in its guts.

It is, however, indeed disturbing how Google don't apparently give a damn about "Android" name and not hauling its ass for the rescue :\
Vendor slovenliness, ugly behavior, one vulnerability after another and shitload of advertisement and dangerous, from the looks of it now - WTF ? Even i have got into situation when F/OSS-fanatic like me dissuades friends and alike from buying Android-based things.

Thanks you, there is n900 for me... with some real "Linux" in it.