China Jails Four For Microsoft XP Piracy 164
adeelarshad82 writes "Chinese court has jailed four people for spreading their bootleg 'Tomato Garden' version of Microsoft's Windows XP program, in what the Xinhua news agency called the nation's biggest software piracy case. One of the four men Hong Lei, the creator of the downloadable 'Tomato Garden Windows XP' software, was jailed for three and a half years by a court in Suzhou in eastern China, Xinhua."
Use Linux (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously. I'm not one to loudly advocate using Linux on the desktop, but if it's a choice between jail and Linux... choose Linux. Use WINE if there's something you can't do without.
(I was going to make a Soviet Russia/Communist China joke here but I decided not to)
Big nothing. (Score:5, Insightful)
just to say that we do uphold them (Score:3, Insightful)
just to say that we do uphold them
Because they're about to start writing software (Score:5, Insightful)
Some of the big bosses in the party have a lot of industries that they run. They're probably realizing that:
1) Intellectual Property and Copyright laws are becoming acceptable in most of the world
2) Pretty soon they won't be just manufacturing things, they will be designing and selling Chinese ideas on foreign soil.
Sorry, but hardly anyone America can compel anyone in China to do anything. They are in their second millennium of being a civilization. They are stockpiling oil, uranium, and millions of tons of other raw materials with all of the American dollars they have. They will be the major economy of the 21st Century, no matter what we do. They are probably looking into the future, and realizing they will have no legal pretext to sue or invade if we start pirating their technology, unless they start obeying the "law" now.
Re:Because they're about to start writing software (Score:4, Insightful)
Colonial powers have always had some sort of excuse or pretext. It's not necessary for the victims of their empires - they usually know what's going on - it's so that their internal populations are on board with the operation.
The "because we want to" method hasn't worked well since the 60s, and it never hurts to have a more believable excuse for sending a generation of children to fight and die in a foreign land.
Windows XP? (Score:2, Insightful)
Whew! Good thing they're starting to crack down on this copyright infringement. Wouldn't want it to cut into sales of this no-longer-available product.
Re:Because they're about to start writing software (Score:5, Insightful)
They are in their second millennium of being a civilization.
Second millennium? More like fifth or sixth.
In lieu of a car analogy, I offer the following:
Just imagine what things would be like in Egypt if the Egyptians still wrote with hieroglyphics and worshipped at temples dedicated to Ra and company... and that the Pharaohs had been overthrown only within the last century or so.
Now substitute "China/Chinese" for "Egypt/Egyptian", "ideograms" for "hieroglyphics", "Shangdi" for "Ra and Co.", and "Chinese Emperors" for "Pharaohs".
That's China.
China is beyond "old"; it was already old when the Romans kicked out Tarquin the Proud.
Most Westerners -- especially Americans, for whom "ancient" means "more than 250 years ago" -- simply do not get this.
Re:Business feasibility (Score:3, Insightful)
I think that given a choice between sickness and health, everyone should be free and able to choose health without severe personal consequence.
Even you. Or Joe the bum. Or anyone else.
That's just my opinion. Feel free to disagree.