Witch Hunts, KDE's Gamble, and Blue Pup

Topping today's Linux news, Matt Asay says the Open Source witch hunts are back with a vengeance. Bruce Byfield discusses what he's calling "KDE's risky gamble" on their new interface. Lastly, Jack Germain testdrives Blue Pup Linux and Steam streaming is out of beta.

Matt Asay today said, "The Open Source Witch Hunts Have Returned." Starting with Red Hat he said, "Red Hat has come under fire in the past week for—wait for it!—refusing to support its competitors. In what other universe would this even be news?" He then comments on Mozilla's actions of late before saying purist idealism may make Open Source "more powerful and relevant for decades to come" even if less welcoming and inclusive.

Bruce Byfield took a looksee at KDE's latest developers' packages and says he wonders how the community is going to react to it considering KDE 4's debut. It's beta quality but right now is showing signs of performance improvements and interface streamlining. KDE seems to be trying to stand out from the crowd a bit but is still following the "simplified" trend. Byfield thinks KDE is treading a bit more cautiously this time, but decides, "The new Plasma could as much reason for disappointment as excitement. We'll have to wait to see."

Blue Pup is a Puppy Linux derivative designed to resemble Windows 8. Jack M. Germain says, "Its user interface lets you switch between a traditional Linux desktop and the partial Metro functionality mode." But underneath it's actually based on Quirky Tahr 6.0 is not as universal as traditional Puppy. It's a different look but supports all the great Puppy software to which folks are accustomed. Germain concludes, "Blue Pup is a very unique combination of user experiences."

Steam is always in the news, but today Steam In-Home Streaming now available to all users. In addition, Valve Takes In-home Game Streaming Out of Beta, Supports Linux. In other Steam news, Moody sci-fi adventure The Fall lands on Steam next week and OpenGL Needs a Reboot.