I recall an RP statement something like that, but it was posted several years before the O 1000 debuted. As far as lawsuits from AAPL over the O 1000's cosmetics, I never saw anything on that subject anywhere except on Applecentric message boards - if such lawsuits were feasible, the auto industry (and the apparel business) would have self-destructed years ago. I have seen no evidence one way or the other as to what source or sources are responsible for the iPod's operating system (old or new). The previous Portalplayer platform (the PP5001-based Tango) used the RTXC open-source real-time operating system.