It will if she's using Mandrake 9.1. I've had terrible trouble getting my Kodak DX3600 to work with Linux very well previously but since upgrading to 9.1 I just plug it in, an icon appears on the desktop which lets me get at the pictures on it and do what I want to them.
Plaintiff's Memorandum of Law in Opposition to IBM's Motion to Compel Discovery
October 23, 2003
The SCO Group ("SCO") submits this memorandum of law in opposition to International Business Machines Corporation's ("IBM") Motion to Compel Discovery.
INTRODUCTION
It has been said that things have both an ostensible and a real reason. Ostensibly, IBM filed its motion to Compel to force SCO to answer interrogatories and produce documents because it had failed to do so. The reality, however, is that SCO not only timely responded to IBM's discovery requests, it then engaged in weeks of lengthy conversation, correspondence, and emails to resolve and clarify discovery issues and ultimately agreed to supplement its responses. But supplemental responses were not all that IBM was seeking. If that were the case, IBM would have waited until today, when supplemental responses were promised and were in fact served. No, what IBM really desired was a forum within which it could construct its stilted and inaccurate mischaracterization of SCO's claims, behind which it could hide its own failure and refusal to provide meaningful discovery responses. As detailed below, IBM's motion is without merit and should be denied.
At its core, IBM's Motion to Compel Discovery asks for answers to interrogatories that fit its own mischaracterized theories of the case, rather than answers that relate to the actual allegations made by SCO in the Complaint. IBM's baseless arguments begin as an effort to smear SCO and end with a newly created justification of why IBM has failed to provide any meaningful discovery responses itself. While IBM's improper litigation tactics are discussed in detail below, the Motion to Compel can be denied on the simple basis that SCO has actually provided supplemental answers, pursuant to earlier agreement, and this motion is therefore moot.
THE LAWSUIT
Contrary to IBM's efforts to recast SCO's Amended Complaint as one limited to trade secret violations, the Amended Complaint contains six counts--the first three counts are for IBM's numerous breaches of licensing agreements. The remaining counts, including Count VI for misappropriation of trade secrets, flow from this transgression and are ancillary to the breach of the license agreements. Thus, notwithstanding IBM's mischaracterization, trade secret misappropriation is not the gravaman of the Complaint (IBM Mem., p. 2), but it is merely one count that recasts one aspect of the injuries caused by IBM's breach. These injuries would exist even in the absence of any trade secret misappropriation.
In its Amended Complaint, SCO alleged that IBM and Sequent (now part of IBM and herinafter collectively referred to as IBM) were licensees of UNIX System V source code ("UNIX"). As part of this license grant, IBM was given certain rights and also agreed to certain restrictions upon its use of UNIX. IBM agreed, for example, that UNIX code and methods would be solely for its own internal business purposes ( 2.01), [1] that UNIX code and methods would not be used for others and by others ( 2.05), and that IBM would maintain the code and methods related thereto in confidence ( 7.06). Similarly, IBM further agreed it would not sell or otherwise dispose of UNIX in whole or in part ( 7.10). Significantly, IBM also agreed that any modifications or derivative works of UNIX prepared by IBM, would be treated by IBM "as part of the original Software Product." ( 2.01). Thus, all of the foregoing restrictions on UNIX also apply equally to any modifications or derivative works created by IBM. [2]
Pursuant to these restrictions, IBM agreed that AIX, IBM's "own version of UNIX" (IBM Mem., p.2 n.1), and Dynix, Sequent's version of UNIX, would be used solely for internal business purposes, would be maintained in confidence, and would not be disposed of in whole or in part. IBM, contrary to these clear and unambiguous limitations on its use of UNIX, including modifications and derivatives thereof
Apache is used for more than IIS so why not compare the vulnerabilities of these programs ?
All it would take is some dumbass corporate user to save a script to/temp, su to root, and execute it. Bang, you have the same exact problems that Windows has
That's quite amusing. You're saying that they would have to save the file somewhere, open a terminal or file manager and go and find the file in the file system, set the execute flag, login as root, go and find the file again an execute it. And that's *all* they have to do. Yes I see now that's just as insecure as viewing an e-mail with the preview pane turned on.
So you're saying that because France, Beligium & Germany have been guilty in the past of the same behaviour America is demonstrating now they should keep their mouths shut and let America get on with it ?
No, the issue is that American privacy laws are unenforcable overseas
I'd reword that slightly and say that the American Privacy Laws are seriously flawed if they allow you to transfer information overseas where it's not protected by local laws, I mean there is no reason at all why other countries should take a blind bit of notice what American Privacy Laws are.
I've noticed a lot of posts wailing that is a problem inherent in Outsourcing.
I think that quite clearly isn't the case, the problem is that US Data Protection laws allow companies to pass personal data to other countries which do not have any requirement to protect that data.
There's no reason why India or Pakistan or wherever that lady lived would have any laws governing the protection of data belonging to US Citizens but US Law should realise that and make it illegal to pass data which is protected in the US to these countries.
I totally agree that disclosure of medical data is a bad thing but it's important to realise how the law has failed to guard against this happening rather than whinge about something totally unrelated to the problem in hand
Presuming you are the Anonymous Coward in the two parent posts, you didn't prove him wrong you simply ignorantly said he was wrong on every point - I saw no proof there.
"If they attack you, why not?"
When has any Middle Eastern country attacked the USA ?
"LYING through your teeth to get popular support"
"Has not happened."
Then where are all these huge amounts of ready to use WMD ? How come the reasons politicians are giving today for the war are totally different to the reasons stated before we went to war ? How come both the dossiers used to support the cause for war have been demonstrated as either being plain wrong or giving undue credit to unsubstantiated rumours ?
"Imposing orwelian laws with little judicial process"
What is the Patriot act and raft of complimentary legislation to help deal with terrorists at the expense of our personal freedoms ?
"holding prisoners incomunicado"
Why are prisoners being held in Guantanamo Bay where they are outside any legal system of justice ?
Kyoto is for the good of no one. It allows countries to greatly increase "greenhouse gases", and there is no connection between that and global warming. Also, the kangaroo court benefits no-one: a playground for antisemites.
That's just rubbish.
"Q: pissing off a peaceful europe"
A: The transgression was made by those coutries that supported Saddam's warlike regime. Hardly peaceful. Thankfully, not all of Europe is evil-minded: there are good countries like UK, Poland, Spain, and others."
No European countries have supported Saddam - at least not recently, no doubt we were all selling him weaponary the same time the US was. You are basically saying that any country or people who disagree with the US are wrong - no reasons, just plain wrong.
Lots of countries have WMD, the US and UK included. No one is suggesting that we get rid of all WMD throughout the world.
The reason the Mr Blair and Mr Bush decided to attack is Iraq is that they were worried Saddam Hussein might make these weapons available to terrorists.
Unfortunatley for the world it appear Mr Blair and Mr Bush had no proof that Iraq ever did have any WMD and even if he did ( it's now obvious to everyone that he didn't ) there is no reason at all to think he was in league with any terrorist organisation.
In effect they have made the world a far more dangerous place, by attacking Iraq they have made sure that a large amount of conventional weaponary will find it's way into the hands of terrorists and killed the friends and relations of a lot of soon to be terrorists.
I agree that the best way to prevent a terrorist attack is find the terrorists before hand and stop them or take away their weapons. The problem now is that by crying wolf no one is going to believe anyone claiming they need to go to war against any other country for a similar reason - who knows maybe next time they might be right.
Finally the best way to stop terrorism is not to find and destroy any weapons which a terrorist may use but to talk to the terrorists and negotiate a settlement. This approach has worked very well in Northern Ireland.
It's pretty clear what is happening is that the US Administration is pursuing it's own selfish goals at the expense of truth, justice and anyone who happens to get in their way. I'm not even going to mention Oil.
That's what puzzled me, in the article it says that they hope to uncover various carvings which were visible in the 50's but have since eroded away. Well that's only 50 years so if they were carvings by the creators it is strange they are able to last 2000+ years and then erode away in the last 50 !
I think it's much more likely most of the carving has been done by people since the monuments were erected.
Whilst it's nice to characterize my boss an incompetent nicompoop, an opion greatly strengthend by his relative lack of knowledge of most of the systems we are running ( as well as a big void where knowledge of things like Exel and Powerpoint normally live ) I don't think it's entirely fair.
His job is not to have an intimate understanding of how everything works and how to fix it because that's what he pays me for. His job is to listen to what I am telling him and mediate between the advice I am giving him as to what we can improve and how and what his bosses are telling him about how much he can spend and the kind of capabilities our systems will be needing in the future.
I know fuck all about negotiating, people management, securing all expenses paid trips around Northern Europe and I would hope my boss doesn't think that makes me an idiot !
I've met a lot of people who are excellent at spouting jargon and turning very simple concepts into incomprehensible non-sense.
So far as I can see there is nothing especially complicated about IT, at the end of the day it boils down to "do this - or do that" and the kind of competent staff you really want in your IT department are people who can explain the difficult stuff in a way which anyone can understand. This is also the best way to make sure they really do know what they are talking about as well.
"If Linux has used source from SCO why shouldn't they be compensated?"
*If* this is the case then yes they should be compensated.
It's most amusing that you are moaning about a/. herd mentality and decrying the lack of critical thought whilst simultaneously refusing to think about this whole SCO situation one bit and arrogantly shouting about your ill informed and sheep like agreement with everything Mr Mc Bride has said.
I read down some of the previous answers to lettes on this page and some of them are just really awful, check this answer saying their copy protection cannot easily be hacked by novices...
"MediaMax, like all copy management or protection technology, can be hacked, but it's not easy for novices and honest people to do. Look, your front door lock to your home enables you to sleep well at night and guards your possessions while you're away. Sure, a professional burglar may be able to pick your lock or force the door open anyway, but the lock keeps honest people "honest," and bad thieves from breaking in. Knowing that professional thieves won't be stopped by your door lock is no reason NOT to buy a lock"
I am running the Linux operating system on my computer and I am able to play your copy protected CD's with no restrictions. I can copy the music onto my hard drive, rip it to.mp3's or.ogg files and generally I am not aware of any copy restrictions at all.
Have I bought a faulty CD or does your copy protection technology only work in some highly controlled circumstances ? E.g. if you are running a certain version of a certain operating system ?
How much does anyone want to bet I never get an answer ?
Reading some of the other posts here it seems a lot of people have problems with Remedy.
I must admit I think it's an excellent product, powerful and flexible enough to meet any need you may have. Where I think people have come across problems with it is in situations where it is not properly supported or implemented ( it does take a dedicated developer / support team to keep it working efficiently and evolving to meet the changes to your structure ).
I have used it in a 1st Line Support scenario and now in a 2nd, 3rd Line Support scenario and provided you are willing to work with it it's an excellent system. However it's amazing the number of luddites you come across, even in IT companies, who instantly hate Remedy the moment they set eyes on it:
"This just takes too long, with my post it notes and memory I always know what I'm doing"
"Why should I have to bother typing stuff into this pile of junk once I fixed someone's problem?"
But really these people miss the point, the power of Remedy ( for us at least ) is that the 1st line helpdesk can see in seconds any open requests and give an up to date appraisal of what is happening with the request to the user or any other interested party. Any further info from the user or whatever can be instantly transmitted across to whoever is dealing with the problem.
In short I like it but I imagine it's very expensive both initially and to support it thereafter.
I am on the TPS list but I still get calls from telemarketers. I say "have you heard of the TPS ? what's your companies business address?" and they put the phone down straight away.
You're obviously in love in with your iPod but you equally obviously haven't tried an iRiver either.
I haven't tried an iPod so in balance to your points here's what I like about iRiver ( I have one with memory rather than a hardrive btw )
1) Device is very solidly built, small and light. It's "tolbleronesque" shape is very nice also. Also the headphones supplied are nice and the sound quality is superb.
2) It's a USB Mass Storage device which means I can copy across music from Linux, Windows or Macs
3) It's navigation and menu system is an absoloute breeze to navigate using the little joystick - basically you can do everything you need to do with one thumb and this joystick almost without thinking about it. It's great.
4) Support from iRiver is great, they are regulary improving the firmware offering users thing like USB compatibility ( whilst retaining the old non USB method for those who prefer it ), constant enhacements to the sound equalizer and now they are offering OGG as well - like they have always promised they would do. In short I think they really care about their customers and want to make the best player they can.
5) There is no DRM at all when used as a USB Mass Storage - you can record songs off the radio ( or through the line in ) and download them to your PC no problems at all.
Essentially if you are looking for a portable music player iRiver does this very well indeed.
Slashdot Mirror
It will if she's using Mandrake 9.1. I've had terrible trouble getting my Kodak DX3600 to work with Linux very well previously but since upgrading to 9.1 I just plug it in, an icon appears on the desktop which lets me get at the pictures on it and do what I want to them.
"the enemy of my enemy is my friend, until he's the enemy again"
Dreadful song.
October 23, 2003
The SCO Group ("SCO") submits this memorandum of law in opposition to International Business Machines Corporation's ("IBM") Motion to Compel Discovery.
INTRODUCTION
It has been said that things have both an ostensible and a real reason. Ostensibly, IBM filed its motion to Compel to force SCO to answer interrogatories and produce documents because it had failed to do so. The reality, however, is that SCO not only timely responded to IBM's discovery requests, it then engaged in weeks of lengthy conversation, correspondence, and emails to resolve and clarify discovery issues and ultimately agreed to supplement its responses. But supplemental responses were not all that IBM was seeking. If that were the case, IBM would have waited until today, when supplemental responses were promised and were in fact served. No, what IBM really desired was a forum within which it could construct its stilted and inaccurate mischaracterization of SCO's claims, behind which it could hide its own failure and refusal to provide meaningful discovery responses. As detailed below, IBM's motion is without merit and should be denied.
At its core, IBM's Motion to Compel Discovery asks for answers to interrogatories that fit its own mischaracterized theories of the case, rather than answers that relate to the actual allegations made by SCO in the Complaint. IBM's baseless arguments begin as an effort to smear SCO and end with a newly created justification of why IBM has failed to provide any meaningful discovery responses itself. While IBM's improper litigation tactics are discussed in detail below, the Motion to Compel can be denied on the simple basis that SCO has actually provided supplemental answers, pursuant to earlier agreement, and this motion is therefore moot.
THE LAWSUIT
Contrary to IBM's efforts to recast SCO's Amended Complaint as one limited to trade secret violations, the Amended Complaint contains six counts--the first three counts are for IBM's numerous breaches of licensing agreements. The remaining counts, including Count VI for misappropriation of trade secrets, flow from this transgression and are ancillary to the breach of the license agreements. Thus, notwithstanding IBM's mischaracterization, trade secret misappropriation is not the gravaman of the Complaint (IBM Mem., p. 2), but it is merely one count that recasts one aspect of the injuries caused by IBM's breach. These injuries would exist even in the absence of any trade secret misappropriation.
In its Amended Complaint, SCO alleged that IBM and Sequent (now part of IBM and herinafter collectively referred to as IBM) were licensees of UNIX System V source code ("UNIX"). As part of this license grant, IBM was given certain rights and also agreed to certain restrictions upon its use of UNIX. IBM agreed, for example, that UNIX code and methods would be solely for its own internal business purposes ( 2.01), [1] that UNIX code and methods would not be used for others and by others ( 2.05), and that IBM would maintain the code and methods related thereto in confidence ( 7.06). Similarly, IBM further agreed it would not sell or otherwise dispose of UNIX in whole or in part ( 7.10). Significantly, IBM also agreed that any modifications or derivative works of UNIX prepared by IBM, would be treated by IBM "as part of the original Software Product." ( 2.01). Thus, all of the foregoing restrictions on UNIX also apply equally to any modifications or derivative works created by IBM. [2]
Pursuant to these restrictions, IBM agreed that AIX, IBM's "own version of UNIX" (IBM Mem., p.2 n.1), and Dynix, Sequent's version of UNIX, would be used solely for internal business purposes, would be maintained in confidence, and would not be disposed of in whole or in part. IBM, contrary to these clear and unambiguous limitations on its use of UNIX, including modifications and derivatives thereof
Apache is used for more than IIS so why not compare the vulnerabilities of these programs ?
All it would take is some dumbass corporate user to save a script toThat's quite amusing. You're saying that they would have to save the file somewhere, open a terminal or file manager and go and find the file in the file system, set the execute flag, login as root, go and find the file again an execute it. And that's *all* they have to do. Yes I see now that's just as insecure as viewing an e-mail with the preview pane turned on.
So you're saying that because France, Beligium & Germany have been guilty in the past of the same behaviour America is demonstrating now they should keep their mouths shut and let America get on with it ?
I'd reword that slightly and say that the American Privacy Laws are seriously flawed if they allow you to transfer information overseas where it's not protected by local laws, I mean there is no reason at all why other countries should take a blind bit of notice what American Privacy Laws are.
I've noticed a lot of posts wailing that is a problem inherent in Outsourcing.
I think that quite clearly isn't the case, the problem is that US Data Protection laws allow companies to pass personal data to other countries which do not have any requirement to protect that data.
There's no reason why India or Pakistan or wherever that lady lived would have any laws governing the protection of data belonging to US Citizens but US Law should realise that and make it illegal to pass data which is protected in the US to these countries.
I totally agree that disclosure of medical data is a bad thing but it's important to realise how the law has failed to guard against this happening rather than whinge about something totally unrelated to the problem in hand
Excellent, looks like this little "democracy" is functioning just fine, cute little soilder ants
Presuming you are the Anonymous Coward in the two parent posts, you didn't prove him wrong you simply ignorantly said he was wrong on every point - I saw no proof there.
"If they attack you, why not?"
When has any Middle Eastern country attacked the USA ?
"LYING through your teeth to get popular support"
"Has not happened."
Then where are all these huge amounts of ready to use WMD ? How come the reasons politicians are giving today for the war are totally different to the reasons stated before we went to war ? How come both the dossiers used to support the cause for war have been demonstrated as either being plain wrong or giving undue credit to unsubstantiated rumours ?
"Imposing orwelian laws with little judicial process"
What is the Patriot act and raft of complimentary legislation to help deal with terrorists at the expense of our personal freedoms ?
"holding prisoners incomunicado"
Why are prisoners being held in Guantanamo Bay where they are outside any legal system of justice ?
Kyoto is for the good of no one. It allows countries to greatly increase "greenhouse gases", and there is no connection between that and global warming. Also, the kangaroo court benefits no-one: a playground for antisemites.
That's just rubbish.
"Q: pissing off a peaceful europe"
A: The transgression was made by those coutries that supported Saddam's warlike regime. Hardly peaceful. Thankfully, not all of Europe is evil-minded: there are good countries like UK, Poland, Spain, and others."
No European countries have supported Saddam - at least not recently, no doubt we were all selling him weaponary the same time the US was. You are basically saying that any country or people who disagree with the US are wrong - no reasons, just plain wrong.
Just England, or would you have attacked Wales and Scotland too ?
Lots of countries have WMD, the US and UK included. No one is suggesting that we get rid of all WMD throughout the world.
The reason the Mr Blair and Mr Bush decided to attack is Iraq is that they were worried Saddam Hussein might make these weapons available to terrorists.
Unfortunatley for the world it appear Mr Blair and Mr Bush had no proof that Iraq ever did have any WMD and even if he did ( it's now obvious to everyone that he didn't ) there is no reason at all to think he was in league with any terrorist organisation.
In effect they have made the world a far more dangerous place, by attacking Iraq they have made sure that a large amount of conventional weaponary will find it's way into the hands of terrorists and killed the friends and relations of a lot of soon to be terrorists.
I agree that the best way to prevent a terrorist attack is find the terrorists before hand and stop them or take away their weapons. The problem now is that by crying wolf no one is going to believe anyone claiming they need to go to war against any other country for a similar reason - who knows maybe next time they might be right.
Finally the best way to stop terrorism is not to find and destroy any weapons which a terrorist may use but to talk to the terrorists and negotiate a settlement. This approach has worked very well in Northern Ireland.
It's pretty clear what is happening is that the US Administration is pursuing it's own selfish goals at the expense of truth, justice and anyone who happens to get in their way. I'm not even going to mention Oil.
That's what puzzled me, in the article it says that they hope to uncover various carvings which were visible in the 50's but have since eroded away. Well that's only 50 years so if they were carvings by the creators it is strange they are able to last 2000+ years and then erode away in the last 50 !
I think it's much more likely most of the carving has been done by people since the monuments were erected.
... whilst you surf the web and post on Slashdot !
BBC's were cool, I've still got 2 of them around somewhere
Whilst it's nice to characterize my boss an incompetent nicompoop, an opion greatly strengthend by his relative lack of knowledge of most of the systems we are running ( as well as a big void where knowledge of things like Exel and Powerpoint normally live ) I don't think it's entirely fair.
His job is not to have an intimate understanding of how everything works and how to fix it because that's what he pays me for. His job is to listen to what I am telling him and mediate between the advice I am giving him as to what we can improve and how and what his bosses are telling him about how much he can spend and the kind of capabilities our systems will be needing in the future.
I know fuck all about negotiating, people management, securing all expenses paid trips around Northern Europe and I would hope my boss doesn't think that makes me an idiot !
I agree with this totally.
I've met a lot of people who are excellent at spouting jargon and turning very simple concepts into incomprehensible non-sense.
So far as I can see there is nothing especially complicated about IT, at the end of the day it boils down to "do this - or do that" and the kind of competent staff you really want in your IT department are people who can explain the difficult stuff in a way which anyone can understand. This is also the best way to make sure they really do know what they are talking about as well.
This kind of statement really pisses me off. It implies that Linux is somehow in danger of not "surviving" which is clearly not the case at all.
"If Linux has used source from SCO why shouldn't they be compensated?"
*If* this is the case then yes they should be compensated.
It's most amusing that you are moaning about a /. herd mentality and decrying the lack of critical thought whilst simultaneously refusing to think about this whole SCO situation one bit and arrogantly shouting about your ill informed and sheep like agreement with everything Mr Mc Bride has said.
I read down some of the previous answers to lettes on this page and some of them are just really awful, check this answer saying their copy protection cannot easily be hacked by novices...
"MediaMax, like all copy management or protection technology, can be hacked, but it's not easy for novices and honest people to do. Look, your front door lock to your home enables you to sleep well at night and guards your possessions while you're away. Sure, a professional burglar may be able to pick your lock or force the door open anyway, but the lock keeps honest people "honest," and bad thieves from breaking in. Knowing that professional thieves won't be stopped by your door lock is no reason NOT to buy a lock"
I have asked the prez this:
I am running the Linux operating system on my computer and I am able to play your copy protected CD's with no restrictions. I can copy the music onto my hard drive, rip it to .mp3's or .ogg files and generally I am not aware of any copy restrictions at all.
Have I bought a faulty CD or does your copy protection technology only work in some highly controlled circumstances ? E.g. if you are running a certain version of a certain operating system ?
How much does anyone want to bet I never get an answer ?
Reading some of the other posts here it seems a lot of people have problems with Remedy. I must admit I think it's an excellent product, powerful and flexible enough to meet any need you may have. Where I think people have come across problems with it is in situations where it is not properly supported or implemented ( it does take a dedicated developer / support team to keep it working efficiently and evolving to meet the changes to your structure ). I have used it in a 1st Line Support scenario and now in a 2nd, 3rd Line Support scenario and provided you are willing to work with it it's an excellent system. However it's amazing the number of luddites you come across, even in IT companies, who instantly hate Remedy the moment they set eyes on it: "This just takes too long, with my post it notes and memory I always know what I'm doing" "Why should I have to bother typing stuff into this pile of junk once I fixed someone's problem?" But really these people miss the point, the power of Remedy ( for us at least ) is that the 1st line helpdesk can see in seconds any open requests and give an up to date appraisal of what is happening with the request to the user or any other interested party. Any further info from the user or whatever can be instantly transmitted across to whoever is dealing with the problem. In short I like it but I imagine it's very expensive both initially and to support it thereafter.
'cos Richard E Grant cannot act to save his life and is extremely annoying !
Avec le Darlek ?
I am on the TPS list but I still get calls from telemarketers. I say "have you heard of the TPS ? what's your companies business address?" and they put the phone down straight away.
You're obviously in love in with your iPod but you equally obviously haven't tried an iRiver either.
I haven't tried an iPod so in balance to your points here's what I like about iRiver ( I have one with memory rather than a hardrive btw )
1) Device is very solidly built, small and light. It's "tolbleronesque" shape is very nice also. Also the headphones supplied are nice and the sound quality is superb.
2) It's a USB Mass Storage device which means I can copy across music from Linux, Windows or Macs
3) It's navigation and menu system is an absoloute breeze to navigate using the little joystick - basically you can do everything you need to do with one thumb and this joystick almost without thinking about it. It's great.
4) Support from iRiver is great, they are regulary improving the firmware offering users thing like USB compatibility ( whilst retaining the old non USB method for those who prefer it ), constant enhacements to the sound equalizer and now they are offering OGG as well - like they have always promised they would do. In short I think they really care about their customers and want to make the best player they can.
5) There is no DRM at all when used as a USB Mass Storage - you can record songs off the radio ( or through the line in ) and download them to your PC no problems at all.
Essentially if you are looking for a portable music player iRiver does this very well indeed.