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KDE's Supporting Members Newsletter
KDE's Supporting Members Newsletter
As we step into 2026, we want to thank you for everything you brought to KDE this past year. Your time, energy, ideas and passion make our community what it is, and we truly appreciate every contribution, big or small.
Let’s take a quick look back at everything we accomplished together in 2025. From productive events and exciting releases to steady progress across many projects, this year once again showed how much we can achieve when we collaborate and support one another.
With that same spirit, we are looking forward to 2026 and to continuing our work on technology that is open, accessible and welcoming to everyone.
Our Year-End 2025 fundraiser has already reached 300% of our initial target thanks to the generosity of supporters like you. Help us bring KDE’s software to even more people by spreading the word and sharing the campaign with anyone who may want to support our community.
Plasma 6.5 is the main feature release, introducing UI refinements, performance improvements, and workflow polish across the desktop. Follow-up releases 6.5.1, 6.5.2, and 6.5.4 deliver bug fixes and stability updates.
KDE Gear 25.12 is "The Gear that Keeps on Gearing" Edition. ‘Tis the season of giving, and we’re here to give you a taste of the new software. It delivers usability improvements, new capabilities, and bug fixes in key apps like Dolphin, Kate, NeoChat, Itinerary, Falkon, and more.
This update enhances performance, fixes bugs, and modernizes features for a more efficient and stable user experience.
Plasma Mobile 6.5 is the main platform release, introducing Waydroid integration, performance improvements, UI polish, and core system enhancements. 25.11 and 25.12 are application update releases, focusing on Plasma Camera and Settings improvements, translations, and ongoing bug fixes.
KDE announced it is going all-in on Wayland, with the Plasma X11 session planned for removal starting with Plasma 6.8. This will allow us to move faster to improve stability and functionality for the majority of our users, who are already using Wayland. If we want to keep producing the best free desktop out there, we have to be nimble enough to adapt to a rapidly changing environment with many opportunities, without the need to drag forward legacy support that holds back a great deal of work.
First release of KRetro, a Libretro frontend written in Qt/Kirigami, designed for Plasma Desktop, Mobile, and Bigscreen.
KDE’s 29th Birthday marked the project’s anniversary with celebrations and community events around the world, encouraging local meetups, Linux install fests, and meaningful activities to spread KDE and combat e-waste.
GCompris contributors visited Kerala, India, to meet the KITE education team, discuss collaborations, and help integrate and upstream language translations and customizations for schools using GCompris in their curriculum.
During the last quarter, we represented KDE at various events and organized the Plasma Sprint.
This year, we again participated in Google Summer of Code, and we had 12 successful projects.
Valve announces desktop machine and VR goggles powered by KDE’s Plasma desktop.
We are happy to announce Season of KDE 2026 - a program to support people in becoming KDE contributors. KDE is looking for new contributors eager to work on adding a feature to or improve something in a kool KDE project.
At the general assembly of KDE e.V., Carl Schwan and David Redondo were elected to the board, joining Aleix Pol Gonzalez, Lydia Pintscher and Eike Hein on the board.
Akademy 2026 will be hosted in the beautiful city of Graz and bring together KDE contrbutors from all around the world. It will be a special Akademy celebrating KDE’s 30th anniversary.
KDE will be at FOSDEM, ready to meet Free Software contributors from all across the world. If you are attending, come say hi at the KDE booth.
You can buy KDE’s Merchandise from CafePress and Freewear.