  The internal/external synchrotron shock scenario has proved very successful
in interpreting the key observations about gamma ray bursts. There still
remains, however, some big uncertainties. The hottest issue concerns the nature
of the progenitor, but there are also other problems concerning the global
energetics, coupled with the issue of the degree of the collimation of the
fireball. To be efficient, internal shocks within the relativistic wind must
occur with large contrasts of their bulk Lorentz factors, and it is not clear
yet the role of the Compton drag process in limiting the velocity differences.
The fireball itself can be "hot" or "cold" according to what accelerates it to
ultrarelativistic bulk speeds. In this respect the recent observations of a
black body shape of the early phases of a few bursts shed new light on this
issue. The most popular radiation process thought to explain the prompt
emission is synchrotron, but it faces severe problems when comparing the
expected spectrum with observations. Alternatives are called for. Emission
features in the X-ray afterglow and absorption features in the prompt spectra
are a powerful diagnostical tool. Besides shedding light on the nature of the
progenitor, they can constrain the total energy release in a
beaming-independent way.
