rants

Ho ricevuto ieri un volumetto promozionale di Vodafone, la solita pubblicità per i clienti.  Prima di buttarlo via senza neanche leggerlo ho sentito l’impulso di dare un’occhiata e verificare speranzoso se avevano deciso di cambiare le tariffe e adattarle alla concorrenza di 3.  Ovviamente sono rimasto deluso, anzi peggio.  Sono stato attirato dall’offerta Vodafone Passport: telefoni all’estero e paghi come se fossi in Italia.  In pratica permettono di telefonare dall’estero verso l’Italia alla tariffa prevista dal piano telefonico italiano, più 1 Euro per ogni chiamata, indipendentemente dalla sua durata.  Ottimo, penso.  Poi passo a leggere il paragrafo successivo che recita:

E per ogni chiamata ricevuta pagherai solo 1 Euro indipendentemente dalla durata della telefonata3.3 Il costo di 1 Euro per le chiamate ricevute verrà addebitato ogni 30 minuti di conversazione.  

Ora l’enigma è capire cosa voglia dire questa frase, chiara quando scritta in grande nella pagina, ma diventa oscura nella nota a piè di pagina.  Io non l’ho capito quanto vado a pagare per le chiamate ricevute.  Voi?

Well, we finally won.  The directive on software patents has been trashed by the European Parliament.  While everybody preferred to have a directive amended, this was the best result possible.  But cancelling the directive is not the  victory I see.  I am more impressed by the results of this army of loosely coupled people, volunteers.  All MEPs were informed of the directive, which is a big thing per se, and many of them knew its content and its implications.  The debate on July 5th gave good hints of the amount of energy spent informing all political groups. The credibility gained by FSFE and FFII as positive forces is the biggest asset, the clear victory we all bring home as a movement.  I have worked closely with the volunteers from Italy and I was impressed … no, I was happy all the time.  I was never worried that the directive could be approved, I didn’t care to a certain extent.  I was (and am) confident that with such people fighting for freedom we can never lose, in the long run. I want to thank the it-help of ffii team: Marco Menardi, a new friend in the arena, has fought night and day to coordinate with the rest of FFII in Europe;  Roberto Galoppini, has spent lots of energies talking with politicians and companies; Carlo Strozzi, who contributed significant time writing and calling MEPs; and finally the hero Mimmo Cosenza, that escaped from the hospital earlier just to be able to go to Bruxelles to meet Italian MEPs.  Of course this is not the whole crew, the complete list is much longer and includes companies like Engineering and Zucchetti, associations like RegistroInformatici, the University of Udine, and all those that have contributed raising public awareness on the issue.  Now we deserve a little rest, but we will have to keep guarding because the threats to freedom come from any corner.  Thank you to all fellows, keep up the good work.

Well, here is a quote from the Sydney Morning Herald (use bugmenot if you don’t want to subscribe) that says it all:

Nigel Stoate, a patent attorney with London firm Taylor Wessing, says the directive leaves the status quo mostly unchanged. About 30,000 software patents are granted by the European Patent Office and the scope of patentability will not be significantly widened. Mr Stoate says the directive removes inconsistencies in granting software patents across the EU’s jurisdictions.

“Europe recognises that patenting software is important to keep up with the US, and the new directive achieves this,” Mr Stoate says. “The new directive is intended to harmonise the position across all the member states.”

The law firm cited  has MEP Klaus Heiner Lehne listed as partner.  Now, does anybody still believes in the lies that BSA’s lawyers have been spreading around in these days?