The news is running like a lightning on IRC and the net. A few minutes ago, the European Parliament voted against the Software Patents directive that so many months we've fought against. Incredibly, the final result on the vote has been 648 in favor, 18 against, 14 abstentions, which offers no doubts. There's some coverage in Spanish media in El PAIS.es. Usual Free Software sites will probably catch up within minutes.

Many thanks to all the people who have been on the first line for years, travelling to Brussels every now and then, patiently posting status updates, patiently asking the rest of us to take action, like the many website demonstrations they have coordinated, and most importantly, informing the MEPs so they know what they were voting. We owe you so much!

Now, we just hope the Comission will not try to sneak it in again in some random farming summit.

I could write about many things today, but I just saw the last 20 minutes of Independence Day. I had classified it as a "not worth the time" film when I first saw it a few years ago, but today I got reminded of a few details that made me laugh again at the stupidity of the whole thing.

It seems every spaceship out there lacks basic firewalling: we saw it in SW: A New Hope and SW: Revenge of the Sith. Independence Day goes way further when the good guys use a virus to destroy the powerful enemy.

There are other good moments, like when a young couple in the military base, under attack, say "we'll die being virgins, but we'll die together", or when a few jewish people are praying and ask someone else to join them... He objects: "but I'm not jewish", and the priest (or whatever) says "nobody's perfect". Excellent!