:LinuxWorld.au: Gates Addresses Italian Senate Amid Protest
LinuxWorld.au: Gates Addresses Italian Senate Amid Protest Feb 3, 2003, 20 :30 UTC (14 Talkback[s]) (8436 reads) (Other stories by Philip Willan)
"Bill Gates outlined his optimistic vision of the coming digital decade in a speech to the Italian Senate Friday as open source advocates in penguin suits protested his visit and called on the Italian government to legislate in favor of the use of open-source software by the state administration as an alternative to Microsoft's ubiquitous operating systems.
"Gates demonstrated a Hewlett-Packard Tablet PC for an invited audience of Italian politicians including Technological Innovation Minister Lucio Stanca and Communications Minister Maurizio Gasparri. Wristwatch computers five times more powerful than the first IBM personal computers would be on the market by next year, he predicted, saying they would offer real time access to sports, weather and stock market data...
"Meanwhile, open source software advocates mounted a protest.
"'We are here to promote free information technology,' said Raffaele Calvelli, a computer programmer from Florence, as he donned a penguin suit in front of the Senate building..."
