Why the Vivaldi tablet never came to market

Open hardware projects tend to take a lot of time, and things happen that might have caused different decisions if a product process was started later.

Having observed the last two years, I'd say that Jolla's and Ubuntu's approach of leveraging Android hardware driver support to the maximum extent while focusing on the added value does seem the best way to go. But it doesn't make the drivers more open by itself, so there are more hurdles for more purely free hardware projects (drivers included) like Vivaldi or maybe Neo900. But in the beginning of 2012 the mindset was still mostly about using normal Linux upstream kernel and maybe X.org, and trying to get non-crappy drivers for them. Accepting "Android" (stripped down) as hardware support package should make less time wasted on those issues.

It's hard to come from software background and decide to do hardware, so I'd think a co-operation would be best. Of course, there's not too much of suitable hw shops around, but I believe the Golden Delicious (http://www.goldelico.com/) could do wonders even with only slightly better resourcing. They've battled their way through GTA04, and Neo900 is a much better marketing effort with joining forces. With joining even more forces, and using everyone's strengths, I think there would be room for bigger successes.