Farid Abdelnour on KDE Blogs

KDE Goals - Call For Submissions

Farid Abdelnour — Sat, 20 Jun 2026 03:20:00 +0000

In 2015, some members of the KDE community began a conversation about where KDE was heading and how it would get there. That conversation became the seed of what is now KDE Goals - a community initiative to help guide KDE's efforts around shared objectives.

KDE Goals reaches its fifth cycle at a special milestone: KDE turns thirty this year. Thirty years of building software that puts people in control of their digital lives and enjoy freedom and privacy. The fourth cycle brought three goals that built toward this vision. Streamlined Application Development Experience focused on making KDE development smoother and more joyful. We Care About Your Input aimed to deliver a seamless out-of-the-box experience for input devices used by artists, gamers, and people with accessibility needs. KDE Needs You! worked on building a sustainable community growth targeting individuals and institutions alike. Checkout the one-year recap at Akademy last year.

Now, as that cycle draws to a close and launches us into the next upward spiral, it is time once again to ask: what matters most to KDE right now? What should the community rally behind for the next two years?

The floor is open. Dream big. The fifth cycle begins!

Join in

Anyone passionate about KDE and has a vision to share is welcome to submit a proposal. You do not have to be a developer to participate.

Read the selection process carefully before you send your proposal. Got any doubts? Join our Matrix room or leave a comment at the KDE forum.

Timeline

Call for submissions - June 20 to August 8
Refinement of proposals - August 9 to August 27
Voting period - August 28 to September 11
Tallying and preparation - September 12 to September 18
Announcement at Akademy - September 19

API documentation porting sprint

Farid Abdelnour — Wed, 13 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

It was once said over the grapevine that: "Our C++ API documentation has some issues, our QML API documentation has a lot of issues."

And it was true, but that is to change soon! As you might know, there is an ongoing effort to port our documentation from Doxygen to QDoc, and you can help with that.

This is a task that has been adopted by the Streamlined Application Development Experience championed by Nicolas Fella and Nate Graham as part of the KDE Goals initiative.

We would like to invite you to join our porting sprint effort to finish this task. On November 14th at 1PM UTC, we'll be hanging out in the Matrix room working on this. Hope to see you there.

Some prerequisites:

Ability to use a terminal
Extra disk space (30GB minimum)
Some familiarity with APIs

Check out the instructions prepared by Thiago Sueto on how to get started porting a project to QDoc.

KDE Goals - A New Cycle Begins

Farid Abdelnour — Sat, 07 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000

The KDE community has charted its course for the coming years, focusing on three interconnected paths that converge on a single point: community. These paths aim to improve user experience, support developers, and foster community growth.

Streamlined Application Development Experience

This goal focuses on improving the application development process. By making it easier for developers to create applications, KDE hopes to attract more contributors and deliver better software for both first-party and third-party applications. A notable task within this goal is enhancing the experience of building KDE apps with languages beyond C++, such as Rust or Python.

Champions: Nicolas Fella and Nate Graham

We care about your Input

KDE has a diverse users base with unique input needs: artists using complex monitor and drawing tablet setups; gamers with controllers, fancy mice, and handhelds; users requiring accessibility features or using a language optimally types with complex input methods; students with laptops, 2-in-1s, and tablets — and more! While KDE has made significant progress in supporting these diverse sources of input over the years, there are still gaps to be addressed. This goal aims to close those gaps and deliver a truly seamless input experience for everyone.

Champions: Gernot Schiller, Jakob Petsovits and Joshua Goins

KDE Needs You! 🫵

KDE’s growth depends on new contributors, but a lack of fresh involvement in key projects like Plasma, Kdenlive, Krita, GCompris, and others is a concern. This goal focuses on formalizing and enhancing recruitment processes, not just for individuals but also for institutions. Ensuring that bringing in new talent becomes a continuous and community-wide priority, vital for KDE's long-term sustainability.

Champions: Aniqa Khokhar, Johnny Jazeix and Paul Brown

Join us!

Your voice, your code, and your ideas are what will shape the KDE of tomorrow — whether you're a user, developer, or contributor. Let’s go on this journey together and make these goals a reality!

Join the Matrix room and keep an eye on the website for the latest KDE Goals updates.

KDE Goals - Our Cumulative Culture

Farid Abdelnour — Mon, 26 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Every two years, the KDE community selects three goals that serve as focal points for the entire community's efforts in the coming years. This cyclical process of goal-setting and community-wide focus is a great example of KDE's Cumulative Culture in action.

This concept, typically observed in human societies, refers to the ability to build upon previous knowledge and innovations to create increasingly complex and effective solutions. In KDE's case, each cycle of goals represents a new layer of accumulated wisdom, i.e. new features and more stability.

The First Cycle (2018-2020)

The first cycle of goals laid the groundwork with its focus on community growth, privacy, and usability.

Streamlined Onboarding: Focused on attracting and retaining new contributors by making the onboarding process smoother and more engaging.
Privacy Software: Prioritized user privacy and security, ensuring KDE software respects user data and complies with security standards.
Usability & Productivity: Aimed to enhance the usability and productivity of KDE software, making it powerful yet easy to use.

The Second Cycle (2020-2022)

The second cycle tackled more complex challenges. Goals like Wayland implementation improvements (which layed the foundation for the Plasma 6 release), improving the app ecosystem, and ensuring consistency in design and functionality.

Wayland: This task aimed at stabilizing Wayland support accross KDE apps.
All About the Apps: Improved KDE's app infrastructure, enabling more efficient app delivery and better support services.
Improve Consistency across the Board: Ensured uniformity in design and functionality across KDE software, improving usability and reducing redundancy.

The Third Cycle (2022-2024)

The third cycle, which is currently coming to an end, was about progress and adaptation. A focus to include environmental responsibility, operational efficiency, and inclusive design.

Sustainable Software: Focused on making KDE software more energy-efficient and environmentally friendly by implementing practices that reduce resource consumption and ensure long-term sustainability.
Automate and Systematize Internal Processes: Aimed to streamline KDE’s internal workflows by automating repetitive tasks, adding code tests across projects and creating a Quality Assurance team to name a few.
KDE For All: Seeked to make KDE software accessible and inclusive for all users.

A New Cycle A Comin' (2024-2026)

Now, as we enter the fourth cycle of the KDE Goals, we see the full power of this cumulative process. Each goal, whether fully achieved or not, contributes to the collective knowledge and capability of the KDE community. Ideas and partial solutions from past cycles become a solid foundation of knowledge and experience that support future efforts.

The commmunity is currently voting on the following proposals for the next KDE Goals cycle that will guide our efforts and shape our focus for the coming years:

KDE Goals at Akademy

The three most voted goals will be announced at Akademy, where there will also be a wrap-up talk about the achievements of the current goals. Also, there will be Birds-of-a-feather (BoF) sessions with the new goal champions.

Join the Matrix room and keep an eye on the website for the latest KDE Goals updates.