Linux, Alternative OS, & Retro Computing News - July 30, 2022

NsCDE, homemade 6502 computer, KDE Latte Dock, & Steam Deck

Every Saturday, let’s look back at the important news of the week.

You know. News about Linux, Alternative Operating Systems, and new developments in Retro Computing. The stuff that matters.

Lead developer of KDE’s Latte Dock says “Farewell”

Latte Dock is a very slick alternative dock and launcher for KDE. Earlier this week the lead developer, Michail Vourlakos (aka psifidotos), announced that he will no longer be maintaining the project. Always a bummer to see quality projects lose their lead developers. Happens quite often.

PERSEUS-9 homemade mobile 6502 computer

Check this beauty out.

PERSEUS-9 is a die-cast aluminum housing mobile computer having dual 6502 CPU, 48 keys and 40 x 7 LED character display. Do I want one? Yes. Yes, I do. The genius that built this deserves all the high fives we can muster.

Fedora changes rules to reject CC0 licensed code

The Fedora Project has re-classified the CC0 license (which is a form of Public Domain licensing — “No Rights Reserved”) as not being allowed for code (but still allowed for data and non-code content). From Richard Fontana (a lawyer that works at Red Hat):

“This is a fairly unusual change and may have an impact on a nontrivial number of Fedora packages (that is not clear to me right now).

The reason for the change: Over a long period of time a consensus has been building in FOSS that licenses that preclude any form of patent licensing or patent forbearance cannot be considered FOSS.”

Interestingly, the Free Software Foundation does actually recommend the CC0 license in some cases (as an alternative to purely Public Domain licensing). Yet the Open Source Initiative (who regularly spread untruths about the origin of “Open Source” and have banned their founders) warns people not to use CC0.

Valve announces all Steam Deck pre-orders will ship this year

Why is this newsworthy? Because it means that 99% of all Linux article, blog, social media, YouTube, and Podcast content will now be about Steam Deck for the next 6 months.

Except for The Lunduke Journal. You’re welcome.

Not so Common Desktop Environment (NsCDE) 2.2 released

CDE (the Common Deaktop Environment) is one of my favorite of the “Old timey desktops” in the UNIX world. And, while it was open sourced many years ago — and technically runs on Linux — using it on a modern distro cane sometimes be a bit of a headache.

Luckily NsCDE (the Not-so-Common Desktop Environmen) takes modern components and does its darndest to mimic the look and feel of that glorious desktop of old. And it’s just been updated to version 2.2.