So, they finally got around to it and it’s officially here! Glad to see this happening.
http://www.archos.com/support/support_tech/updates_dev.html?country=gb&lang=en
For those that want to use build-root and create something with minimal userspace the sources for SDE also appeared on archos git repository:
(note this is the source for the content of the SDE aos file, it does not allow you to create a signed AOS file. If you want to use the output, just flash it through recovery)
A little birdie just told us about stock firmware:
Vibra is not built into all units, but if yours has a vibra motor you can turn it on by issuing:
echo ro.board.has_vibrator=yes >> /data/local.prop
If you want to damage your hearing, this one is for you:
echo ro.audio.no_adjust=yes >> /data/local.prop
We’ll not be held responsible for whatever you do with this information. For all we know the unit might try to bite you or eat your homework!
The first ReleaseCandidate has been done a while ago and we got some very important feedback from the testers – thanks again to everyone who filed tickets! We’re working hard with our limited resources to make this a great release, sadly this takes time.
As the RC is not advertized nor supported you haven’t read about it here on the openAOS blog. Still we figure we should show you what’s cooking now that we’re closing in. This release will still be based on Cyanogenmod 7 and will support Archos gen7 and gen8 devices (including A48IT).
Thanks to leijae for the video!
The more observant among our readers might have already noticed that these git repositories appeared today in the official Archos Gitorious account:
And something more verbose and also for the less tech-savvy among our readers:
This will be pretty much the same type of sources like we saw them for the previous generations. (Android/Linux kernel, toolchain, µClibc userspace, …)
One very important bit: this will not be the source-code for the whole firmware. This will only be the sources for which Archos:
Just to make this clear: no Android source code is to be expected.
We expect that soon Archos will also provide a SDE firmware for gen9 to enable experimentation with open-source software on this very interesting OMAP4 based hardware. 
Hi, just a quick blurb. Emails to addresses @openaos.org and @openpma.org currently experience problems.
This sadly also concerns the mailing lists.
We hope to solve this soon. Sorry for the inconvenience.