Why not debian?
Debian is cool, but it isn't suitable to be the main OS on a embedded phone. The first thing that we noticed that a lot of packages in debian waste space with locales and man pages. These are not really useful for an embedded device. The second thing, debian for arm -> armel is a generic arm architecture. Our goal is to compile directly for the target device. (In this case the Openmoko Freerunner).
Why not another devices, such as ...?
Donate us a such device and be sure that telefoninux will be released for that device ;)