From BoingBoing: Software Patents Stopped in India. Well, India acted much savvier than Europe but we are still fighting against Software Patents in Europe. Software patents are good only for mega big companies that use them to destroy, via legal fights, small and medium companies. Imagine being sued by, say, IBM for patent infringement. You will lose a lot of time and money to defend your reasons and you will eventually give up and bankrupt. Software Patents are a nightmare for European IT market and for Europe. Help in stop them.

I don’t agree with Lucas when he reasons about the Limitations of Google OS. He says In any computing application where there is a sense of responsibility, the computer must be owned by the person or organization who owns the responsibility. A desktop company like Microsoft can sell you software which you then take responsibility for. A web company like Google can’t.
But there is an error: Microsoft does not sell you the software, you buy a licence of use from Microsoft. This is completely different. In the same way, you can buy from Google the licence of use for GoogleOS. The fact that the bits that compose the software happen to stay on your computer (or not) is totally non-relevant. Actually, in the licence of use, Microsoft could even ask you to not reverse engineer it, to not study it; you could be in situation when you have no way to verify the code you think is there is actually there. Besides, if you have Microsoft Windows installed on your computer, you don’t know if it is relying for some services on some remote servers (of course disconnecting from the Internet will reveal it). You have no way to check what is on your harddisk (a complete operating system or some random bits?) since Windows is not Free Software (it does not give you freedoms).
But, hey, if you want a CD pressed by Google with a shiny GoogleOS logo on it, that simulates its installation on your hard disk, I think Google will be happy to provide it.

(It is an Italian initiative, so I’ll write it in Italian).
LinuxSi.com e’ un sito per raccogliere informazioni su quei negozi che vendono computer con Linux gia` installato, e che magari hanno anche delle persone “linux friendly” che possono dare una mano e fare suggerimenti sulla selezione di un sistema dove far girare Linux.
E` un modo per premiare e aiutare chi pensa a noi.
Essendo nuovo, finora ci sono pochi negozi nel database, ma ci si mette molto poco per aggiungerne uno.

Richard Stallman on news.com:
Thanks to Mr. Gates, we now know that an open Internet with protocols anyone can implement is communism. (…)
Here’s what Bill Gates told Microsoft employees in 1991:
“If people had understood how patents would be granted when most of today’s ideas were invented and had taken out patents, the industry would be at a complete standstill today…A future start-up with no patents of its own will be forced to pay whatever price the giants choose to impose.”
Mr. Gates’ secret is out now–he too was a “communist;” he, too, recognized that software patents were harmful–until Microsoft became one of these giants. Now Microsoft aims to use software patents to impose whatever price it chooses on you and me. And if we object, Mr. Gates will call us “communists.”
Read the entire (not long) article and join the No Software Patents campaign (We just received 2 good news from old Europe).