I don't think Maemo was ever touted to be more free/open source than Android, at least not by Nokia.
Sure, there are plenty of fan boys on this forum that have said that. For me comparing the openness of the two is apples and oranges.
With Maemo, we're still waiting on the excellent work from the Fremantle Porting Task Force. Progress is slow but I think they will get there eventually, probably without all of the features and services that Maemo 5 originally shipped with.
Maemo for me, has never been completely about being open source...
The draw towards Maemo is more about interoperability with existing Linux OSs: glibc, X11, the ease porting software, etc. In this sense of the word, it's way more open than Android.