KDE Timeline

KDE Timeline
29 Years of KDE
A tour through the moments that marked the 29 years of community history, starting with the technologies that made possible its existence. See our KDE 20 years
book
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1969
UNIX Born
In 1969,
Ken Thompson
and
Dennis Ritchie
started working on
UNIX
. Initially written in assembler, it was soon rewritten in
, a language created by Ritchie and considered high level.
Thompson & Ritchie
1979
C++ Created
In 1979,
Bjarne Stroustrup
started developing "C with classes", which would later become the
C++
. In his opinion, it was the only language of the time that allowed to write programs that were at the same time efficient and elegant.
Bjarne Stroustrup
1984
Free Software Born
In 1984,
Richard Stallman
started developing
GNU
(GNU is Not Unix), a completely free operating system based on Unix, which was proprietary.
Richard Stallman
1991
Linux Kernel Written
In 1991,
Linus Torvalds
created the
Linux kernel
based on
MINIX
, a version of Unix written by
Andrew Tanenbaum
. The emergence of Linux has revolutionized the history of free software and helped to popularize it. See the
25 Years of Linux Kernel Development infographic
Linus Torvalds
1993
First Distros Born
In 1993, the first free distributions begin to emerge, based in
GNU
and
Linux
. A GNU/Linux distribution is usually formed by the Linux kernel, GNU tools and libraries, and more a collection of applications.
GNU & Tux
1995
Qt Created
In 1995, the Norwegian company Troll Tech created the cross-platform framework
Qt
, with which KDE would be created in the following year. Qt became the basis of the main KDE technologies in these 20 years. Learn more about
Qt History
Qt logo
1996
KDE Announced
In 1996,
Matthias Ettrich
announced the creation of Kool Desktop Environment (KDE), a graphical interface for Unix systems, built with Qt and C ++ and designed for the end user. The name "KDE" was a pun on the graphic environment
CDE
, which was proprietary at the time. Read
the original announcement
of the KDE Project.
Matthias Ettrich
1997
KDE One Conference Held in Arnsberg
In 1997, about 15 KDE developers met in Arnsberg, Germany, to work on the project and discuss its future. This event became known as
KDE One
Cornelius Schumacher's Archive
KDE Beta 1 Released
The beta 1 version of KDE was
released
exactly 12 months after the project announcement. The release text emphasized that KDE was not a window manager, but an integrated environment in which the window manager was just another part.
KDE Beta 1 Screenshot
KDE e.V. Founded
In 1997,
KDE e.V.
, the nonprofit that represents the KDE community financially and legally, was founded in Tübingen, Germany.
KDE e.V. logo
1998
KDE Free Qt Foundation Created
The foundation agreement for the
KDE Free Qt Foundation
is signed by KDE e.V. and Trolltech, then owner of Qt. The Foundation
ensures the permanent availability
of Qt as Free Software.
Konqi with Qt in its heart
KDE 1 Released
KDE released the
first stable version
of its graphical environment in 1998, with highlights as an application development framework, the KOM/OpenParts, and a preview of its office suite.
KDE 1
1999
Konqi Adopted
In April 1999, a dragon is announced as the new animated assistant to the KDE Help Center. It was so charming that it replaced the previous project mascot, Kandalf, from version 3.x on. See the
KDE 2 Screenshot
showing Konqi and Kandalf.
Konqi
KDE Two Conference Held in Erlangen
In October 1999, the second meeting of KDE developers took place in Erlangen, Germany. Read the
report
on the KDE Two Conference.
Group Photo (Cornelius Schumacher's Archive)
2000
The Kool Desktop Environment Becomes 'The KDE Desktop'
From the
beta 1 version of KDE 2
it is possible to perceive a project naming change. The releases that once referred to the project as "K Desktop Environment", began referring to it only as "KDE Desktop".
KDE 2 logo
KDE Three Beta Conference Held in Trysil
In July 2000, the third meeting (beta) of KDE developers occurred in Trysil, Norway.
Find out
what was done during the conference.
Cornelius Schumacher's Archive
KDE 2 Released
KDE
released
its second version, featuring as main news
Konqueror
web browser and file manager; and the office suite
KOffice
. KDE had its code almost entirely rewritten for this second version.
KDE 2
2001
KDE Becomes 'The KDE Project'
From the
release announcement
of version 2.1.2 there is also a change of the nomenclature. The announcements began referring to KDE as "KDE Project".
KDE 2.1 Splashscreen
KDE Women Group Created
In March 2001, the creation of community women's group was announced. The
KDE Women
aimed to help increase the number of women in free software communities, particularly in KDE. Watch the video
"Highlights of KDE Women"
of the Akademy 2010.
Original design for Katie, KDE's new mascot
2002
KDE Three Meeting Held in Nuremberg
In March 2002, about 25 developers gathered for the
third KDE meeting
in Nuremberg, Germany. KDE 3 was about to be released and the KDE 2 code needed to be migrated to the new library Qt 3.
Group Photo of KDE Three
KDE 3 Released
KDE released its
third version
, showing as important additions a new print framework, KDEPrint; the translation of the project for 50 languages; and a package of educational applications, maintained by the KDE Edutainment Project.
KDE 3
KDE e.V. Meeting Held in Hamburg
In August 2002, there was a
meeting of board members of the KDE e.V.
that was essential to establish how the organization works. At this meeting it was decided, among other things, that the brand "KDE" would be registered and that new members should be invited and supported by two active members of e.V..
Group Photo (Cornelius Schumacher's Archive)
2003
KDE 3.1 Released
In
version 3.1
the community presented KDE with a new look, a new theme for widgets, called Keramik, and Crystal as default theme for the icons. See
KDE 3.1 New Feature Guide
KDE 3.1
Kastle Conference Held in Brno
In August 2003, about 100 contributors of KDE from various countries gathered in a castle in the Czech Republic. The event was called
Kastle
and was the forerunner of Akademy, the event that would become the international annual meeting of the community.
Group Photo of Kastle
2004
Akademy 2004 Held in Ludwigsburg
In August 2004, the
first international meeting of the community
took place. The event was held in Ludwigsburg, Germany, and launched a series of international events called
"Akademy"
which take place annually since then. The event got its name because it happened in the "Filmakademie" city film school. See the
group photos
of all Akademies.
Group Photo of Akademy 2004
2005
KDE 3.5 Released
KDE 3.5 was released
. This version introduced several new features, among them, the SuperKaramba, a tool that allowed customize your desktop with "applets"; the Amarok and Kaffeine players; and the media burner K3B. See
KDE 3.5: A Visual Guide to New Features
KDE 3.5
2006
First Akademy-Es Held in Barcelona
In March 2006, the
first meeting
of Spanish KDE contributors took place in Barcelona. Since then, Akademy-Es has turned into an annual event. Learn more about
Spanish KDE contributors group
First Akademy-es photo
KDE Four Core Meeting in Trysill
In July 2006, the developers of the KDE core libraries gathered in Trysill, Norway, for the
KDE Four Core meeting
. The event was a kind of successor to the KDE Beta Three Conference and KDE Three Meeting and in it developers worked on the development of KDE 4 and stabilization of some core libraries to the project.
Group Photo (Cornelius Schumacher's Archive)
2007
Guademy Held in in A Coruña
In March 2007, several contributors of KDE and
Gnome
met in A Coruña, Spain, an event which sought to establish a collaboration between the two projects. The event became known as
Guademy
, a mixture of
Guadec
, the name given to the Gnome event with Akademy, KDE event name.
Group Photo of Guademy
KDE 4 Alpha 1 Released
In May 2007,
the alpha 1 version of KDE 4
, codenamed "Knut", was announced. This announcement showed a completely new desktop, with a new theme, Oxygen, new applications like Okular and Dolphin, and a new desktop shell, Plasma. See
KDE 4.0 Alpha 1: A Visual Guide to New Features
KDE 4 Alpha 1
KDE 4 Development Platform Released
In October 2007, KDE announced the
release candidate
of its development platform consisting of basic libraries and tools to develop KDE applications.
Konqi developer
2008
KDE 4 Released
In 2008, the community
announced the revolutionary KDE 4
. In addition to the visual impact of the new default theme, Oxygen, and the new desktop interface, Plasma; KDE 4 also innovated by presenting the following applications: the PDF reader Okular, the Dolphin file manager, as well as KWin, supporting graphics effects. See
KDE 4.0 Visual Guide
KDE 4.0
KDE Becomes the Community
From the
announcement of version 4.1
on there was already a tendency to refer to KDE as a "community" and not just as a "project". This change was recognized and affirmed in the rebranding announcement of the following year.
Konqis community
2009
First Camp KDE Held in Negril
In January 2009,
the first edition of Camp KDE
took place in Negril, Jamaica. It was the first KDE event in the Americas. After that, there were two more US-based conferences,
in 2010 in San Diego
, and another
in 2011 in San Francisco
Group Photo of 2009
Gran Canaria Desktop Summit Held in... Gran Canaria
In July 2009, the first
Desktop Summit
, a joint conference of the KDE and Gnome communities, took place in Gran Canaria, Spain. The
Akademy 2009
was held with this event.
Group Photo of DS 2009
1 Million Commits Reached
The community
reached the mark of 1 million of commits
. From 500,000 in January 2006 and 750,000 in December 2007, only 19 months later, contributions reached the 1 million mark. The increase in these contributions coincides with the launch of innovative KDE 4.
Active contributors at the time
First Randa Meetings Held
In September 2009,
the first
of a series of events known as
Randa Meetings
took place in Randa, in Swiss Alps. The event brought together several sprints of various community projects. Since then, Randa Meetings take place annually.
Group photo of first RM
KDE Rebranded
In November 2009, the community
announced
changes to its brand. The name "K Desktop Environment" had become ambiguous and obsolete and is replaced by "KDE". The name "KDE" is no longer just referring to a desktop environment, but now represents both the community and the project umbrella supported by this community.
Brand graph
KDE Software Compilation Becomes a "Thing"
From
version 4.3.4
on, KDE announcements began to refer to the whole suite of products as 'KDE Software Compilation' (KDE SC). Currently, this trend is abandoned.
Brand Map
2010
Akademy-Br Held in Salvador
In April 2010,
the first meeting
of Brazil KDE contributors took place. The event was held in Salvador, Bahia, and was the only Brazilian Akademy edition. From 2012 on, the event expanded to a meeting for all Latin American contributors.
Group Photo of Akademy-Br
'Join the Game' Program Announced
In June 2010, the KDE e.V. announced the supporting membership program
"Join the Game"
, which aims to encourage financial support to the community. By participating in the program you become a member of the KDE e.V., contributing to an annual amount and being able participate in the organization's annual meetings.
JtG logo
KDE SC 4.5 Released
In August 2010, the community
announced version 4.5
of its products: Development Platform, Applications and Plasma Workspaces. Each of them began to have a separate release announcement. One of the highlights of this version was the Plasma interface for netbooks, announced in version 4.4.
Plasma Netbook screenshot
Calligra Suite Announced
In December 2010, the community
announces
the
Calligra Suite
, a split from the KOffice suite. KOffice was discontinued in 2011.
Calligra Suite logo
2011
First Conf KDE in India
In March 2011, the
first conference
of the KDE and Qt community in India took place in Bengaluru. Since then, the event has taken place annually.
Group Photo of Conf India
Desktop Summit 2011 Held in Berlin
In August 2011,
another joint conference
of the KDE and Gnome communities took place in Berlin, Germany. Nearly 800 contributors from all over the world came together to share ideas and collaborate on various free software projects.
Group Photo of DS 2011
Plasma Active for Mobile Announced
The community released the first version of its interface for mobile devices,
Plasma Active
. Later, it was superseded by Plasma Mobile.
Plasma Active 1 screenshot
2012
First LaKademy Held in Porto Alegre
In April 2012, the
first meeting
of the KDE contributors in Latin America, LaKademy, took place. The event was held in Porto Alegre, Brazil. The
second edition
took place in 2014 in São Paulo, and since then has been an annual event. So far, all editions were held in Brazil, where the highest number of contributors from the Latin American community is based.
Group Photo of LaKademy 2012
KDE Manifesto Published
KDE Manifesto
, a document that presents the benefits and obligations of a KDE project, was released. It also introduces the core values that guide the community: Open Governance, Free Software, Inclusivity, Innovation, Common Ownership, and End-User Focus.
KDE Manifesto Art
Konqi Get a Makeover
In December 2012, the community
launched a competition
to create a new mascot using Krita. The competition winner was Tyson Tan, who created
new looks for the Konqi and Katie
Konqi redesigned
2013
Release Cycles Change
In September 2013, the community
announced
changes in the release cycle of its products. Each of them, Workspaces, Applications, and Platform, now have separate releases. The change was already a reflection of the restructuring of KDE technologies. This restructuring resulted in the next generation of community products, which would be released the following year.
Graph of the KDE technologies separated
2014
Frameworks 5 Released
The first stable version of Frameworks 5 (KF5), the successor of KDE Platform 4,
was released
. This new generation of the KDE libraries based on Qt 5 has made the KDE development platform more modular and facilitated cross-platform development.
Evolution of development of KDE technologies
Plasma 5 Released
Release
of the first stable version of Plasma 5. This new generation of Plasma has a new theme, Breeze. Changes include a migration to a new, fully hardware-accelerated graphics stack centered around an OpenGL(ES) scenegraph. This version of Plasma uses as base the Qt 5 and Frameworks 5.
Plasma 5 screenshot
GCompris Joins KDE
In December 2014, the educational software suite
GCompris joins
the
project incubator of KDE community
. Bruno Coudoin, who created the
project
in 2000, decided to rewrite it in Qt Quick to facilitate its use on mobile platforms. It was originally written in GTK+.
GCompris logo
Plasma Mobile Announced
The community
announced Plasma Mobile
, an interface for smartphones that uses Qt, Frameworks 5 and Plasma Shell technologies.
Plasma Mobile photo
2015
Plasma on Wayland Released
The
first live image
of Plasma running on Wayland was made available for download. Since 2011, the community works in support of Wayland by KWin, the Compositor of Plasma, and the Window Manager.
KWin on Wayland
Plasma 5.5 Released
Version 5.5 is
announced
with several new features: new icons added to the Breeze theme, support for OpenGL ES in KWin, progress to support Wayland, a new default font (Noto), a new design.
Plasma 5.5 screenshot
2016
KDE Neon Published
The community
announced
the inclusion of another project in its incubator,
KDE Neon
, based on Ubuntu. Developers, testers, artists, translators and early adopters can get fresh code from git as it is committed by the KDE community.
Neon 5.6 screenshot
Akademy 2016 Held as Part of QtCon
Akademy 2016
took place as a part of
QtCon
in September 2016 in Berlin, Germany. The event brought together the Qt,
FSFE
VideoLAN
and KDE communities. It celebrated 20 years of KDE, 20 years of VLC, and 15 years of FSFE.
QtCon banner
Kirigami UI Released
Kirigami is released
, a set of QML components to develop applications based on Qt for mobile or desktop devices.
Kirigami logo
KDE presents its Vision for the future
In early 2016, as a result of a survey and open discussions among community members,
KDE has published a document outlining its vision for the future
. This vision represents the values that its members consider most important: "A world in which everyone has control over their digital life and enjoys freedom and privacy." The idea in defining this vision was to make clear what are the main motivations that drive the community.
KDE 's Advisory Board Announced
In order to formalize the cooperation among the community and the organizations that have been its allies,
KDE e.V. announced the Advisory Board
. Through the Advisory Board, organizations can provide feedback on community activities and decisions, to participate in regular meetings with KDE e.V., and to attend to Akademy and community sprints.
KDE Celebrates 20 Years
On October 14, KDE celebrated its 20th birthday. The project that started as a desktop environment for Unix systems, today is a community that incubates ideas and projects which go far beyond desktop technologies. To celebrate its anniversary the community
published a book
written by its contributors.
We also had parties
been held in eight countries.
KDE 20 years art by Elias Silveira
2017
KDE Slimbook Announced
In partnership with a Spanish laptop retailer
the community announced the launch of the KDE Slimbook
, a ultrabook that comes with the KDE Plasma and KDE Applications pre-installed. The laptop offers a pre-installed version of KDE Neon and
can be purchased from the retailer's website
KDE Slimbook
QtCon Brasil Announced
Inspired by QtCon 2016, which took place in Berlin and brought together the KDE, VLC, Qt and FSFE communities,
KDE community in Brazil hosted QtCon Brasil in 2017
. The event was held in São Paulo and brought together Qt experts from Brazil and abroad in two days of talks and one day of training.
KDE Sets Goals
KDE sets its goals for the next four years
. As part of an effort undertaken by its members since 2015, the community has defined three main objectives for the coming years: to improve the usability and productivity of its software, to ensure that its software helps to preserve the privacy of users and to facilitate the contribution and integration of new collaborators.
2018
Debian Joins KDE Advisory Board
Debian, the famous Linux distribution founded in 1993,
joined KDE's Advisory Board
to further deepen the collaboration between both communities. With this, we expect both communities to grow even stronger and to keep working together to build FLOSS projects.
Debian Community
2019
KDE-Powered Newspaper World First
The
Janayugom
daily newspaper becomes the
first in the world
to switch to a completely free software stack for its publication. The regional paper has 100,000 subscribers across Kerala, India. An event celebrating the move is attended by the state's Chief Minister. Plasma, Okular, Krita, and more are deployed on systems across 14 different offices.
KDE Adopts GitLab for Online Development
In 2019,
KDE transitioned to GitLab
as our main DevOps platform. This change allowed the KDE community to work more efficiently and to lower the bar for new contributors to join us. Our GitLab instance can be found
on KDE Invent
KDE adopts GitLab
New Goals Set for 2019
KDE
announces
a new slate of goals for the near future at Akademy 2019. The community has whittled down a long list of proposals and chose to prioritize a consistent user experience across all KDE software, getting KDE apps into the hands of users with the help of new packaging methods, and improving the Wayland session.
KDE Adopts Matrix for Instant Messaging
Matrix
, an Open Source, decentralized and secure Instant Messaging platform, became the default and recommended way of communication for those who like their instant messaging graphical. Matrix allows community members to use a web-based, desktop or mobile clients, as well as native KDE clients, such as
Neochat
. IRC channels still exist and are bridged to Matrix, ensuring that members using different systems can communicate easily with each other. Likewise Telegram channels, although these are not considered official, as Telegram does not open source the code for its servers or encryption methods.
2020
KDE PinePhone Announced
KDE's Plasma Mobile developers team up with
PINE64
to create the
PinePhone KDE Community Edition
, a mobile phone that runs solely Free Software, is easy to hack and protects your privacy.
KDE PinePhone
GCompris Celebrates 20th Anniversary
In 2020 GCompris celebrated its 20th birthday and was also
deployed in many schools in Kerala, India
. KDE educational applications have been helping students around the world for decades and are part of the
KDE Educational Project
GCompris in Malayalam
2021
Valve Chooses KDE Plasma for Steam Deck
Valve, the creators of Steam, announced their portable gaming computer called Steam Deck has KDE Plasma as the default desktop experience. KDE developers have been working with Valve to make Plasma work well with Steam Deck.
KDE Plasma running on Steam Deck
2022
First In-Person Post-Pandemic Akademy Held in Barcelona
Akademy 2022 was held in Barcelona from the 1st to the 7th of October. it was the first time in two years Community members and guests laid out in person what had been going on within KDE's projects (and adjacent projects), the state of the art, and where things were headed.
Attendees to the 2022 Akademy held in Barcelona.
KDE Wins at Fundraising
KDE attempted two new fundraising initiatives in 2022. The first involved
raising funds for a specific app
: Kdenlive, KDE's video editor. Our goal was to raise €15,000 to enable developers to add much-requested features and stabilize the code. The second initiative was
the end-of-year fundraiser
, where we aimed to raise €20,000. Both fundraisers were massive successes, surpassing the goals we had set. This achievement stands as a testament to the generosity of community members, supporters, and users.
Katie and Konqi thank you for your donation.
2023
KDE Free Qt Foundation Celebrates 25th Anniversary
The Foundation
guarantees the present and future freedom of the Qt framework as it has the right to release Qt under the BSD license if necessary to ensure that Qt remains open source. This remarkable legal guarantee protects the free software community and creates trust among developers, contributors, and customers.
The KDE Free Qt Foundation helps keep the Qt toolset free.
2024
KDE Launches Plasma 6
With Plasma 6, our technology stack underwent two major upgrades: a transition to the latest version of our application framework, Qt, and a migration to the modern Linux graphics platform, Wayland. The launch was dubbed "MegaRelease", as new versions of KDE's apps and Frameworks, along with a new version of Plasma Mobile were all published at the same time.
The default Plasma 6 desktop environment.
2025
KDE Linux is born
KDE Linux
is a free, open-source, user-focused operating system being built by KDE to include the best implementation of everything KDE has to offer, using the most advanced technologies.
Project Banana was the code name for KDE Linux.