It's not breaking news that software piracy is a colossal problem, especially in China. ComputerWorld reports on how the piracy issue is prompting Nanchang, the capital of China's Jiangxi province, to require internet cafe operators to replace pirated Windows versions with Red Flag Linux. And there's the rub: they must replace pirated software with Red Flag Linux for 5,000 yuan ($725). The price includes two years of support, and the license lasts a "lifetime." It is unclear whether this license is per seat, or per business location, or whether system and security updates fall into the support area. There is some confusion on whether purchasing a legal Windows server license is an option. There is no confusion, it seems, on this front -- Red Flag Linux is the Linux cafe owners must use.

Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols surmises this has got to be the worst way to market Linux. I'd hazard a guess it's not "marketing" going on in Nanchang, but his worries are spot on.

We've written before about Dimdim, an outstanding open source web conferencing application which may be of special interest right now to businesses looking to save on travel for meetings and the like. Today, Dimdim has announced an upgrade that offers synchronized co-browsing, better scalability and enhanced performance. Version 4.5 now lets you start a Dimdim "room" and send anyone the room's URL, after which users on the other end can see what you see as you go to various web addresses, view data and videos, and share online data. This is another good move that differentiates Dimdim from a very crowded field of conferencing applications.

Linux Weekly News directs readers to a Slackware Linux list post detailing the package versions and included components for the upcoming Slackware 12.2 release. The major components (such as X, and the kernel) are now frozen, and most of the remaining changes are smaller adjustments and documentation updates.

Since this release is incremental, the Slackware developers focused on maintaining backward compatibility without sacrificing stability. This is why the team decided to forego the new X server and merging KDE4, and wait to implement these updates in the 13.0 release.