Pluggers, FYI... It has been two months since Hong Kong sped up the implementation and enforcement of the new amendment to the Copyright Ordinance clarifying that end-user software piracy is a criminal offense. These amendments took effect last April 1, 2001, It originally met with some flak from users because of the way it dealt with piracy in a corporate environment. Presumably, employees, whether new or not, expect the management to take care of the licensing details of the software they will need for their particular job. The HK Government does not see it the same way. They expect users to take resposibility as well, therefore each user now has to know not only what software is installed in his/her pc but also the state of its licensing. Lately, businesses have been clamoring for an extension to the grace period. The net effect of all this has been no less than dramatic. There are numerous roadside newsstands here and two months ago, the only pc oriented mags for sale were for gaming. Lately, several Linux magazines have been displayed and they sell like hotcakes! This is the first monday of the month, I saw two with english titles I could read and another in chinese but with an unmistakable penguin on it. One of the mags, called LinuxHall - had a CD of Red Hat 7.1 bundled. There was also a boxed Chinese Linux - which I later learned is a red hat based distro from http://www.sniic.com/. I went down after breakfast and they were all gone... If newstands are an indicator, then Linux has gone mainstream here. I wanted to learn more from the local LUG but they were asking for a registration fee of 100 HKD, tsk ,tsk tsk. ----- On April 1, 2001, the Intellectual Property (Miscellaneous Amendments) Ordinance 2000 will come into force in Hong Kong. The new law clarifies that the use of an infringing copy of a computer software program in any type of business will constitute a criminal offence punishable by imprisonment for up to 4 years and a fine of up to HK$50,000 for each infringing copy of software. Criminal penalties could extend to a company and its employees, such as its IT professionals, software users, and managers. http://www.bsa.org/hongkong/sam/notice.html http://www.e-businessworld.com/english/crd_software_520368.html -- Paolo Infoweb Telecom (Global) Limited POT: (852) 2388-1168/1053/1476 or 2625-1688 loc 127 FAX: (852) 2625-1501 7B CNT Tower, 338 Hennessy Road, Wanchai, Hong Kong, SAR, China 852 _ Philippine Linux Users Group. Web site and archives at http://plug.linux.org.ph To leave: send "unsubscribe" in the body to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To subscribe to the Linux Newbies' List: send "subscribe" in the body to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
