Published at LXer:

As recently reported on Slashdot, Apple, in its infinite wisdom, has added a checksum to the iPod database apparently to restrict non-iTunes products (like Amarok via libgpod) from having the ability to add music. To me this sounds pretty familiar. This is the same thing they did to iTunes 4.5 to make it harder for other apps to read off their DAAP shares, they changed it again in iTunes 7; open source apps are still unable to read iTunes 7 DAAP shares. But there's better news on this iPod front. The guys from #gtkpod reverse engineered the hashes.
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Ugly, and nice. Ugly actions from Apple, nice work from the guy who reverse-engineered.

I'm not fully understanding Apple's actions; I think it wouldn't probably decrease their iPod sales if they would work on Linux (vice versa). There are some reasons I understand why they would like to use something like hashes to make sure only iTunes works with iPods, but they're not that heavy really. If it was meant for Macs only, or Macs and Windows machines, there should be an engraved text in the iPod saying that using it outside Mac/Windows voids warranty or something (of course it would drop the sales down a bit).

Apple is like a fluffy Microsoft. Looks better, but in the depth it's still a beast.