Must 'completely free' mean 'hard to install'? Newbie gripe sparks some soul-searching among Debian community [Mon Jan 25 2021]

Hi {NAME}, Daily Headlines - 25 January 2021 ***************************************************************** Must 'completely free' mean 'hard to install'? Newbie gripe sparks some soul-searching among Debian community Project members discuss conflict between principles and pragmatism because of need for non-free drivers ***************************************************************** Data Centre * Google's Alphabet sticks a pin in its Loon internet broadband service It never really took off (commercially), apparently * Legacy IT kit is behind 80% of UK taxman's pandemic costs, says spending watchdog HMRC spent £53.2m maintaining creaky tech estate – report * BOFH: Are you a druid? Legally, you have to tell me if you're a druid Er, I mean, droid. In the far reaches of the world, under a lost and lonely hill, lies the OFFICE OF NEVERMORE * We're gonna bounce back, says Intel's Gelsinger: Don't worry, most of our chips will be made by us... in 2023 Financial figures released minutes ahead of schedule after 'hacker' swipes and shares infographic * As the world turns to big names in cloud and IT to get through the pandemic, IBM still manages to shrink Red Hat and off-prem see growth while revenue, profit down overall DevOps * Tesla axes software engineer for allegedly pilfering secret Python scripts after just three days on the job WARP Drive process automation code said to be 'extremely valuable' Emergent Tech * Nothing new since the microwave: Let's get those home tech inventors cooking You might want to wash the rolling pin first Personal Tech * We'd rather go down in Down Under, says Google: Search biz threatens to quit Australia if forced to pay for news Meanwhile, web giant agrees to cough up euros to French publishers * Five years after US promised crackdown on ticket-snaffling bots, the first prosecutions are in... and are a slap on the wrist Miscreants hit with $31m fines tho only pay what they can afford: $3.7m * Honor has flown the nest: Announces first phone as an independent firm, inks deals with supply chain big dogs Proud parent Huawei probably sobbing in the car * You can drive a car with your feet, you can operate a sewing machine with your feet. Same goes for computers obviously Mice do like cheese after all Security * ADT techie admits he peeked into women's home security cams thousands of times to watch them undress, have sex Plus: SonicWall hacked, Qualcomm security wobble, warrantless cellphone monitoring by US snoops revealed * Scottish enviro bods shrug off ransomware gang's extortion attempt as 4,000 files dumped online, saying it's nothing big Awa' an bile yer heid, SEPA tells ransomware scum * Clop ransomware gang clips sensitive files from Atlantic Records' London ad agency The7stars, dumps them online Medium-sized firm, big revenues, big target * Microsoft Edge goes homomorphic: Nobody will see your credentials... but you'll need to sign in to use it Has your password been pwned? MS browser will tell you * It's 2021 and you can hijack a Cisco SD-WAN deployment with malicious IP traffic and a buffer overflow. Patch now And also fix up these other holes that can be exploited via HTTP requests, SQL injection, etc Software * Must 'completely free' mean 'hard to install'? Newbie gripe sparks some soul-searching among Debian community Project members discuss conflict between principles and pragmatism because of need for non-free drivers Science * There may be not one but two new air leaks in International Space Station: Russian boss tells us not to panic Microscope needed to find tiny punctures in the hull * We'll explore Titan with a methane submarine, a methane submarine, a methane submarine... Saturn moon's largest liquid sea mapped by radar – and soon, robots? Bootnotes * Reg reader's XXXbox oddity: The BBC4 topless thumbnail trauma whodunnit 'Not us, guv' from all involved – except TiVo, which fixed it while blaming nameless third party ------------------------------------------------------------------------ This email was sent to {EMAIL} You can update your preferences here: or unsubscribe from this list: Situation Publishing Ltd, 14 Gray's Inn Road, London, WC1X 8HN, UK The Register and its contents are Copyright © 2021 Situation Publishing. All rights reserved. Find our Privacy Policy here: