Slackware's 21st, Post-Open Source, and Six Lightweights

Today in Linux news is a belated Happy Birthday to the oldest living Linux distribution. Matt Asay says we're living in a "post-open source world." Jack Wallen says KDE Plasma 5 is "fast but not furious" and Carla Schroder shares a list of six lightweight distros.

Slackware Linux turned 21 July 16 and I feel bad I forgot. Nevertheless, several folks did remember today such as Phoronix.com and Joe Brockmeier. Willy Sudiarto Raharjo linked to a copy of the original Usenet post announcement. Happy Birthday Slackware.

Matt Asay says, "We're living in a post-open source world." He says folks are not choosing the GPL for their software these days and quote RedMonk and others as proof. But it's not that folks are running back to proprietary licenses, but instead are choosing none at all (or one that's so permissive as to amount to little more than none). He said in an article at InfoWorld.com yesterday, "Which is where we find ourselves today: in the midst of the post-open source revolution, a revolution in which software matters more than ever, but its licensing matters less and less."

Jack Wallen, who said KDE was stagnating, today said of KDE Plasma 5, "It's impressive." Others had mentioned the speed improvements in Plasma 5 but Wallen lead with that saying it's thanks to QT5. It's as fast as Xfce says Wallen. But beyond that, he's not so impressed. He says it's just KDE 4 all nitro'd up. "If you strip away the idea of convergence from KDE Plasma 5," he says you are left with:

* It's fast (really fast)
* It's a clean, familiar interface
* It's already amazingly stable
* It has a nice new lock screen

In other KDE news, Martin Grasslin today posted some thoughts on the "road ahead" for Plasma 5 KDecoration2. The old KDecoration is "showing its age" and is cumbersome and difficult to use according to Grasslin. The KDE guys have been working on a solution for a while and Grasslin gives us a preview. So, be sure to check that out.

Carla Schroder today featured "6 Excellent Lightweight Linux Distros for x86 and ARM." These included Elementary OS, LXLE, and newcomer Point Linux. Check out her full post for the rest and why she chose them.

In Linux gaming news today two links: Quake Live Coming To Steam Very Soon and Nothing You Do Matters in This Game, But You’ll Still Obsess Over It.