The title is a tentative translation from an Italian song by Elio e le storie tese, one of my favorite when I was a teen-ager. We’re two days from Christmas and I should be busy wishing happiness and merriness to all of my friends, but this year there’s a different feeling. It’s that kind of tension and uncertainty you get when you go to the beach and there are heavy clouds, announcing some possible storm. You get busy thinking to B plans and even if the clouds end up disappearing your leisure time has been ruined. It’s not me. Lately several prominent newspapers wrote about the unhappy Italian mood and I’m surprised by how precisely they painted it. Apparently, even friends that moved abroad feel the same.

Google led the creation of Open Handset Alliance, a consortium involving a number of telco and manufacturers . As its first act the Alliance released Android, an open source operating system for mobiles complete of SDK and API. The SDK includes a working emulator and half a dozen example applications. The idea to establish an open platform for mobile developers is very good but not particularly new: project Openmoko has been working to a similar concept for several months and went as far as to release a developer version of the handset.

Currently there are several competing platforms with a significant presence on the market: Symbian OS, Microsoft Windows Mobile, Apple iPhone, Motorola MotoMAGX, Qualcomm BREW and RIM Blackberry to name a few. Trying to build a business on top of mobile applications is very difficult because you have to make several different versions of your application and the market is very fluid. Now, with the huge money and pressure that Google can inject into the field there’s a chance they can impose a common platform.

They chose to build on top of several open source technologies: Linux, OpenGL, SQLite and Webkit. The latter is particularly interesting because it’s a rendering engine derived from the KDE project (and going to be merged back into konqueror) and already powers the iPhone, s60 and Safari. This could become the rendering engine widely used both on the web and on mobile handsets.

To bootstrap the project and quickly build a critical mass of third party developers, Google issued a contest with a 10 million dollar prize for the best applications that will be developed in the next few months. There are a few countries not allowed to participate to the contest. As usual there are countries forbidden by US laws (Cuba, Iran, Syria, North Korea, Sudan, and Myanmar) and on top of that there are countries excluded because of local restrictions: Quebec and… Italy!

So Telecom Italia is one of the members of Open Handset Alliance, but Italians can’t participate to the challenge. Great. How is this possible? Simple: in Italy contests are regulated by a very strict law requiring that issuers create accurate documentation, put the prize in a protected guarantee fund and seek permission of the Ministry of Economy. Google probably found that going through all of this was not worthwhile. Italian bureaucracy and over-legislation at work. Do you remember my last post on this topic?

Your speed limit is 30Kmh. It’s a restricted area and you can’t enter on workdays from 7:30 to 19:30, except that trucks can’t enter from 8:30 to 20:30 all the week, motorcycles non compliant to european standard CEE 97/24 can’t enter on workdays from 10 to 12 and from 15 to 17, cars non compliant to CEE 91/441 are always forbidden, authorized people for sectors B and C can always enter, authorized people loading/unloading can enter from 7:30 to 9:30.

BUT motorcycles, cycles, assistance vehicles, authorized buses, and hotel customers can enter. The buses thing has to be very important because it is repeated on the right. If you enter, you can’t park of workdays, except trucks, cars and motorcycles with 3 or 4 wheels and people with authorization B. If they find your car parked without permission, they’re gonna remove it.

There’s more, but didn’t fit in the picture. And you have to read and understand all of this when entering this street, and of course you’re not allowed to stop the car 5 minutes in the middle of the street.

Perfect example of the italian laws. I think now you understand why we struggle so much to drive our country in the globalization traffic.

We’ve paid our dues time after time
We’ve done our sentence but committed no crime
And bad mistakes we’ve made a few
We’ve had our share of sand kicked in our face
But we’ve come through

We are the champions my friends
And well keep on fighting till the end
We are the champions
We are the champions
No time for losers cause we are the champions…

of the world.

This song has never been more appropriate. After yesterday’s wonderful match our national soccer team demonstrated that, no matter the corruption scandal, they still are the best. People in Firenze went nuts and kept on partying in the streets until this morning. Thanks guys, you’ve made our day.

Before second world war, Italy used to be a monarchy ruled by the Savoia dynasty. After the war, on June 2nd 1946 Italians voted in a referendum and chose republic for their new government. It’s not been a large majority: republic won for just two million votes and the country was split with a republican north and a monarchic south. On June 13th, King Umberto II finally decided to leave the country, heading to Portugal. Italian parliament then enacted a law that forbade ex-Kings and their sons to enter the Italian territory. This law lasted until 2002, when it’s been removed and Prince Vittorio Emanuele, Umberto’s son, eventually had permission to return to Italy.

Today, Vittorio Emanuele is under investigation, suspected on several crimes. Some of his phone conversations have been recorded and I think he’ll have a hard time defending himself in court.

I never had sympathy for monarchs. Yes, sometimes they can rule a country better than democracy, while the latter can prove itself slow, corrupted and inefficient. But you know, rulers aren’t always illuminated, many of them don’t care that much for their country or are simply stupid or evil.  I’ve had enough of evil prime ministers, so whatever the outcome of the process against Vittorio Emanuele will be, today I thank our fathers for their vote in 1946.