In 2025, the Kdenlive team continued grinding to push the project forward through steady development, collaboration, and community support. Over the past year we’ve found a nice balance between adding new features, bug fixing, polishing the user interface, and improving performance and workflow, with stability taking priority over feature creep.

We relaunched the website with a new content management system, refreshed some content and the design, and restored historic content dating back to 2002. We also strengthened upstream collaboration with the MLT developers and contributed several improvements to OpenTimelineIO.

Here’s a look at what we've been up to and what is ahead.

RELEASE HIGHLIGHTS

As part of KDE Apps, we follow the KDE Gear release cycle, with three major releases each year—in April, August, and December—each followed by three point maintenance releases.

25.04.0

This release added a powerful automatic masking tool and brought the last batch of features from our last fundraiser.

-> Read full changelog

Background Removal

The new Object Segmentation plugin based on the [SAM2][4] model allows to remove any selected object from the background.

OpenTimelineIO

We rewrote our OpenTimelineIO import and export function using the C++ library. Now you can exchange projects with other editing applications that support this open source file format.

Waveform improvements

Audio waveform generation got a 300% performance boost, along with a refactored sampling method that accurately renders the audio signal and higher-resolution waveforms for greater precision.

25.08.0

This release focused heavily on stabilization, bringing over 300 commits and fixing more than 15 crashes. Instead of major new features, the effort went into polishing and bug fixing.

-> Read full changelog

Audio Mixer

We redesigned the audio mixer bringing levels with clearer visuals and thresholds. We also did some code refactoring and cleanup. This change fixes issues with HiDPI displays with fractional scaling.

Markers and Guides

Guides and Markers got a major overhaul this release to improve the project organization.

Titler improvements

This release the titler received some much needed love like improved SVG and image support with ability to move and resize items, added center resize with Shift + Drag, and renamed the Pattern tab to Templates and moved the templates dropdown to it

25.12.0

The focus of this release cycle was on improving the user experience and polishing the user interface.

-> Read full changelog

Welcome Screen

We added a new first-run launch screen for first time users as well as added a Welcome Screen allowing to easily launch recent projects.

Docking System

We added a new, more flexible docking system that lets you group widgets, show or hide them on demand, and save layouts as separate files that can be shared or stored within projects.

Redesigned monitor

The audio waveform in the Project Monitor got a revamped interface with an added minimap.

THE ROAD AHEAD

26.04

This next release is just around the corner and brings a nice batch of nifty new features like monitor mirroring and animated transition previews, making it much easier to visualize how they will look before applying them. Additionally, dropping a transition onto the timeline can now automatically adjust its duration to match the clips above and below, saving time and reducing manual tweaking.

This feature allows you to mirror any monitor while working in fullscreen mode. It’s especially useful when working with multiple displays or collaborating with others in the editing room.

OTHER NOTEWORTHY FEATURES

• Change the playback speed of multiple clips at once
• Import a clip directly from the timeline context menu and insert it at the click position
• Option to always zoom toward the mouse position instead of the timeline playhead
• Generate audio thumbnails for sequences

ROADMAP

Our roadmap is constantly being reviewed and updated, and some of the upcoming highlights include implementing the new features in MLT, the multimedia framework which powers Kdenlive. Some exciting upcoming features include 10/12 bit color support, playback optimizations (decoding), and OpenFX support. (Shoutout to a Kdenlive community member for leading this effort). Also expected is a refactoring of the subtitle system as well as continuing to develop the Advanced Trimming Tools.

DOPESHEET

We are currently working on refactoring the keyframing system and implementing a Dopesheet, basically it is a dedicated timeline for managing and viewing keyframes from multiple effects simultaneously. This work will also introduce per-parameter keyframing (currently, once you add a keyframe to an effect, it is applied to all parameters by default). More info can be found in the last status report. This work is made possible through an NGI Zero Commons grant via NLnet.

MICROSOFT STORE

We have been working on enabling and fixing multiple modules in MLT to compile with MSVC allowing us to ship Kdenlive in the Microsoft Store soon. Another advantage is that it will allow to run unit tests on our CI for Windows.

COMMUNITY

NEW CONTRIBUTORS

Currently, the Kdenlive core team is made up of 8 active members, including 2 developers.

In 2025, 38 people contributed code to Kdenlive (including the core dev team and other KDE devs), a truly impressive number! Even more exciting, about half of them were first-time contributors, which is always great. We hope to see many of them continue contributing in the future. On behalf of the Kdenlive team, we salute you all!

SPRINTS AND EVENTS

AMSTERDAM SPRINT

In February, part of the Kdenlive core team met in Amsterdam for a short sprint, highlighted by a visit to the Blender Foundation, where we met with Francesco Siddi and he shared valuable insights into Blender’s history and offered advice on product management for Kdenlive. We also attended their weekly open session, where artists and developers present progress on ongoing projects. During the sprint, we discussed and advanced several technical topics, some highlights include:

• Refining the audio workflow task
• Developing a proof of concept to improve clip timecode handling
• Finishing an MLT Framework patch to enable rendering without a display server (needed for Flatpak testing)

BERLIN SPRINT

The Berlin sprint was one of our most productive gatherings to date. Most of the team was there in person, and we also connected online with those who couldn’t make it. We discussed just about every aspect of the project, from roadmap planning to upcoming features and workflow improvements. Some of the highlights include:

• Evaluated the current state of the Titler and discussed possible integration with Glaxnimate
• Reorganized the Menu structure
• Developed a proof of concept for using KDDockWidgets
• Redesigned and started development of the audio clip view in the Clip Monitor

Thanks to the nice folks at c-base who kindly hosted us.

AKADEMY 2025

Akademy is always a great opportunity to exchange ideas with the broader KDE and Qt communities. One of the highlights was meeting the maintainer of Glaxnimate, where we discussed common goals and ways to collaborate. This year, Akademy will be in Graz on the 19-24 of September, and we hope to see you there.

SHOWCASE

We’re very happy to see more YouTube channels talking about Kdenlive. Here are some examples of what the community has been creating.

We'd love to see what you've been working on in the past year. Share your videos productions in the comments!

SPREAD THE WORD

Help us grow the community by organizing meetups, talks, or workshops in your local area. Don’t hesitate to contact us if you need guidance, materials, or support to get started.

Below are photos from a workshop with indigenous communities in Paraguay.

STATS

DOWNLOADS

• Kdenlive was downloaded 11,500,714 times from our download page in 2025. Do note that many additional installs happen through Linux distribution package managers, the Snap Store, Flathub, and other third-party servers, where statistics are not always available or reliably measurable.
• The Flatpak package from Flathub gets 41,499 downloads per month.
• 25.04.2 got the most number of downloads.
• 17.08.2 was downloaded 1 time!

Downloads per release cycle

CODE COMMITS

Per Release Cycle

• 25.04 cycle: 403 commits
• 25.08 cycle: 368 commits
• 25.12 cycle: 405 commits

Files With Most Code Changes

• src/mainwindow.cpp: 102 commits
• src/bin/bin.cpp: 70 commits
• src/timeline2/view/timelinecontroller.cpp: 67 commits
• src/monitor/monitor.cpp: 60 commits
• data/org.kde.kdenlive.appdata.xml: 57 commits

Files With Most Bug Fixes

• src/mainwindow.cpp: 1021 commits
• src/timeline2/model/timelinemodel.cpp: 600 commits
• src/bin/bin.cpp: 593 commits
• src/timeline2/view/timelinecontroller.cpp: 506 commits
• src/renderer.cpp: 501 commits

USERBASE

Continent

• 🌍 Europe — 949,077
• 🌎 Americas — 781,131
• 🌏 Asia — 750,406
• 🌍 Africa — 127,948
• 🌏 Oceania — 53,397
• 🧊 Antarctica — 5

To the 5 of you in Antarctica, let us know what you are editing. ;)

Country

• 🇺🇸 United States — 392,967
• 🇮🇳 India — 267,449
• 🇧🇷 Brazil — 153,319
• 🇩🇪 Germany — 118,115
• 🇫🇷 France — 111,071
• 🇨🇳 China — 104,692
• 🇷🇺 Russia — 96,051
• 🇪🇸 Spain — 91,052
• 🇬🇧 United Kingdom — 86,165
• 🇮🇹 Italy — 61,814

Region

• 🇺🇸 California, United States — 42,769
• 🇧🇷 São Paulo, Brazil — 37,452
• 🇮🇳 Tamil Nādu, India — 27,313
• 🇫🇷 Île-de-France, France — 26,755
• 🇮🇳 Mahārāshtra, India — 25,246
• 🇺🇸 Texas, United States — 22,470
• 🇨🇦 Ontario, Canada — 20,016
• 🇳🇱 Noord-Holland, Netherlands — 19,826
• 🇺🇸 Florida, United States — 18,997
• 🇨🇳 Shanghai Shi, China — 18,991

FUNDING

Ever since our last, and very successful, fundraiser in 2022, we haven’t actively asked for donations, yet the community has continued to support us. We are very grateful for that.

In 2025, we received a total of €9,344.80 from donations (down from €11,526.61 in 2024). Around 30% of the amount was given by donors who kindly set up a recurring plan. The average donation was about €25, with the lowest amount being €10 and the highest €500.

We allocate 20% of our budget to KDE e.V. to support infrastructure costs (servers and related expenses), as well as administration, legal support, and travel. As in previous years, your contributions enable us to continue supporting Jean-Baptiste (Kdenlive's maintainer), allowing him to dedicate several days each month to Kdenlive in addition to his volunteer work.

WE NEED YOUR SUPPORT

Kdenlive needs your support to keep growing and improving. If just a quarter of the people who downloaded Kdenlive in 2025 contributed €5, our maintainers would be able to dedicate more time to the project, and it would even allow us to hire more develpers to speed up development and improve stability. Small amounts can make a big difference, please consider making a donation.

More options to donate

You may also contribute by getting involved and helping in:

• Reporting, debugging, and triaging bugs
• Translating Kdenlive in your language
• Promote Kdenlive in your local community

If you have recently installed a very up-to-date Linux distribution with a desktop environment, or upgraded your system on a rolling-release distribution, you might have noticed that your home directory has a new folder: “Projects”

Why?

With the recent 0.20 release of xdg-user-dirs we enabled the “Projects” directory by default. Support for this has already existed since 2007, but was never formally enabled. This closes a more than 11 year old bug report that asked for this feature.

The purpose of the Projects directory is to give applications a default location to place project files that do not cleanly belong into one of the existing categories (Documents, Music, Pictures, Videos). Examples of this are software engineering projects, scientific projects, 3D printing projects, CAD design or even things like video editing projects, where project files would end up in the “Projects” directory, with output video being more at home in “Videos”.

By enabling this by default, and subsequently in the coming months adding support to GLib, Flatpak, desktops and applications that want to make use of it, we hope to give applications that do operate in a “project-centric” manner with mixed media a better default storage location. As of now, those tools either default to the home directory, or will clutter the “Documents” folder, both of which is not ideal. It also gives users a default organization structure, hopefully leading to less clutter overall and better storage layouts.

This sucks, I don’t like it!

As usual, you are in control and can modify your system’s behavior. If you do not like the “Projects” folder, simply delete it! The xdg-user-dirs utility will not try to create it again, and instead adjust the default location for this directory to your home directory. If you want more control, you can influence exactly what goes where by editing your ~/.config/user-dirs.dirs configuration file.

If you are a system administrator or distribution vendor and want to set default locations for the default XDG directories, you can edit the /etc/xdg/user-dirs.defaults file to set global defaults that affect all users on the system (users can still adjust the settings however they like though).

What else is new?

Besides this change, the 0.20 release of xdg-user-dirs brings full support for the Meson build system (dropping Automake), translation updates, and some robustness improvements to its code. We also fixed the “arbitrary code execution from unsanitized input” bug that the Arch Linux Wiki mentions here for the xdg-user-dirs utility, by replacing the shell script with a C binary.

Thanks to everyone who contributed to this release!

I spent the last week in Graz, Austria, attending a KDE sprint as well as Grazer Linuxtage.

KDE Sprint

Just like last year, the Grazer Linuxtage team had made rooms available for KDE people to meet in the week prior to the conference. More than twenty contributors attended, below are a few notes from discussions I have been involved with.

AppStream release notes

We use AppStream application metadata in a number of places currently:

• The apps.kde.org website.
• Software stores such as Flathub, F-Droid, Google Play or the Microsoft Store.
• Software centers such as Discover.

In-app application metadata has so far been maintained separately though, using the KAboutData API. With KDE Frameworks 6.26 it will become possible to populate that from AppStream data as well, reducing duplicated data and duplicated translation efforts.

We also expanded how we use release notes from AppStream data:

• Release notes can now also be translated.
• There’s new API for accessing AppStream release notes inside an application itself. This is meant to avoid duplicated efforts for in-app release notes.
• The KDE Gear release automation will now handle notes for pre-releases correctly. This means you can add release notes for users of CD builds already, those will get translated and merged into the subsequent stable release notes automatically.

There’s a few more things to do here still:

• We don’t have a Kirigami-based standard component for in-app release notes yet.
• The metadata converters for F-Droid and Google Play don’t handle release notes yet.

LSAN rollout on the CI

After Albert had added infrastructure for LeakSanitizer (LSAN) suppressions in the CI, we were able to enable LSAN in several more repositories which had previously been blocked on “unfixable” or intentional “leaks” outside of our control.

The increased visibility on actual issues then also helped with identifying and fixing a couple more “real” leaks, e.g. in KGuiAddons and LibKGAPI.

Qt 6.11 for Android

There has been some progress on the long overdue Qt update for our Android builds. This had been delayed as it’ll imply some rather drastic changes to the supported Android versions and devices. Lacking alternatives we will go ahead with this.

In particular, after 26.04.0 is out this means only Android 9 and higher will be supported, and 32bit ARM builds will be discontinued.

We prepared Qt 6.11 CI images and applied necessary build fixes to practically all of our apps that have Craft-based Android builds. Initial test looks promising, and some of the annoying input handling glitches seem to have been fixed.

Sentry for Android

Another Android-related topic we looked into was uploading crash information to KDE’s Sentry instance. Our Linux and Windows builds can do this since some time, and it has been a great help with identifying, prioritizing and fixing crashes.

Initial experiments got this to work quickly on Android as well, but it will require more work to do this properly and give users full control over whether they want to upload crash information or not. We explored a few options on how to do that and have a plan now, but that yet has to be implemented.

KMime move to KDE Frameworks

The long-lasting move of KMime to KDE Frameworks will finally happen early May, after the 26.04 KDE Gear release and in time for the 6.27 KDE Frameworks release.

Users of KMime will need a few minor build system adjustments for this. The CMake target name changes from KPim6::Mime to KF6::Mime, and the version number changes from KDE PIM versioning KDE Frameworks versioning. You can either replace this at once, or use the forward-compatibility approach suggested below.

The following CMake snippet replaces the previous find_package call for KPim6Mime and will handle both variants from before and after the move.

find_package(KF6Mime 6.27 CONFIG)
if(NOT TARGET KF6::Mime)
    find_package(KPim6Mime 6.7.0 CONFIG REQUIRED)
    add_library(KF6::Mime ALIAS KPim6::Mime)
endif()

Target names in target_link_library calls can then be switched to the new KF6::Mime already. Once the transition is complete, the above snippet can be simplified to a single find_package call for the new variant again, without needing to touch anything else anymore.

Akademy preparations

While we were in Graz the dates for this year’s Akademy were announced: September 19-24. Registration as well as the Call for Participation are open as well.

As it was already known that Akademy would be in Graz this year, we could use the opportunity to inspect venues, test food options, as well as to review and improve OSM (indoor) mapping of the conference location.

Itinerary

With a bunch of people traveling to the sprint, Itinerary also got a bit of attention of course:

• Performance of opening the “My Data” page the first time was improved, by optimizing computing some of the statistics shown on that page.
• A new way of sharing GraphQL query fragments should simplify maintaining support for the various OpenTripPlanner flavors in KPublicTransport. For some of the backends, the information available for rental bikes/scooters/cars became more detailed as a result of this.
• Kate’s syntax highlighting got support for IATA SSIM flight schedules. That’s fallout from work on importing such data into Transitous, where it will eventually also benefit Itinerary and KTrip.

And more…

That’s not all of course, other topics included:

• Improving the usability of the push services configuration in System Settings.
• Enabling System Settings to configure notifications from Flatpak apps using KNotificiation.
• Aligning the different ways currently used to share plain text via Purpose.
• Fixing some non-obvious issues with the static builds after a recent CI image update.

There’s also reports from e.g. Kieryn, Albert and Kristen on Planet KDE with more details and other perspectives.

Grazer Linuxtage

KDE

At Grazer Linuxtage we had a KDE booth again, showing devices running Plasma, Krita and Plasma Mobile, handing out stickers as well as the famous amigurumi Konqis, collecting donations, and of course with a bunch of KDE contributors around to talk to.

Albert also did a presentation about 30 years of KDE.

Transitous

Also as part of the conference program I spoke about Transitous and what has been built for that and around that in the past two years.

Following the recent discussions about dynamic traffic data, the talk about monitoring vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure messages was particularly interesting. The information shown on opentrafficmap.org is obtained that way, and shows how incredibly detailed this is.

There’s current positions of trams, busses, and regular cars, speed, acceleration vectors, status of all external lights, and which pedal gets pressed. Traffic lights report their current state and change timings as well as provide a full machine-readable model of their signal groups and lane relations. All of that in a standardized and (intentionally) unencrypted form.

Lots of potential in this, I wasn’t aware this went anywhere after things had gotten a bit quieter around the self-driving cars hype.

How you can help!

Bringing people together, for a small meeting or a big conference, is extremely useful and productive. The necessary travel and logistics come with costs though, which is where your donations to organizations like KDE e.V. or Grazer Linuxtage help!

Welcome to a new issue of This Week in Plasma!

Last week over 20 KDE contributors converged on the Austrian city of Graz for our annual mega-sprint. It was a busy week, offering a good opportunity for the kinds of face-to-face conversations that can unblock stuck work and reach new consensus. Expect reports to appear on Planet KDE over the next week or two.

We skipped an issue of TWiP due to the sprint but these past two weeks have indeed been busy! Some major features landed, along with a slew of impactful UI improvements. Let’s get right into it:

Notable new features

Plasma 6.7

Each screen can now switch between any of the system’s virtual desktops independently! (Hynek Schlindenbuch, KDE Bugzilla #107302)

You can now choose your default calendar app on System Settings’ Default Applications page. (Denys Madureira, plasma-workspace MR #6468)

You can now configure the Alt+Tab window switcher to always appear on the primary screen, rather than whichever screen has keyboard focus or the pointer on it. (Yuki Tsujii, KDE Bugzilla #329696)

You can now mark app-specific actions that you find in a search as favorites. (Kai Uwe Broulik, plasma-workspace MR #6224)

The Kicker Application Menu widget now highlights newly-installed apps, just like the Kickoff Application Launcher widget does. (Christoph Wolk, plasma-desktop MR #3649)

You can now drag-and-drop apps to the “Favorites” sections of the Kickoff, Kicker, and Dashboard widgets. (Christoph Wolk, KDE Bugzilla #383302 and plasma-desktop MR #3652)

If you find yourself captivated by a picture of the day wallpaper image, you can now right-click on it and access external information about it. (Kai Uwe Broulik, kdeplasma-addons MR #1035)

You can now optionally set Discover to quit after installing updates. (Taras Oleksyn, KDE Bugzilla #508743)

Notable UI improvements

Plasma 6.6.5

While entering the password for a Wi-Fi network using the Networks widget, the password field no longer loses keyboard focus if you happen to move the pointer away from it. (Tobias Fella, plasma-nm MR #556)

Plasma 6.7

There’s now a new standard “Badge” component in Kirigami, and many parts of Plasma have been ported to use it. (Nate Graham, kirigami MR #1847, plasma-desktop MR #3089, plasma-workspace MR #6488, systemsettings MR #399, discover MR #1290, and kinfocenter MR #262)

After

Before

The Input Method System Tray widget no longer disables the active input method if you click it while the input method isn’t currently visible. Now it just shows and hides it. (Aleix Pol Gonzalez, plasma-workspace MR #6485)

Improved the design of Discover’s grid and list items, which also slightly increases the information density of the pages that show them. (Nate Graham, discover MR #1292)

After

Before

The Kicker Application Menu widget now shows tooltips for items whose labels have been elided. (Christoph Wolk, KDE Bugzilla #515608)

System Monitor now differentiates multiple GPUs by their names, rather than by arbitrary numbers. (Bernhard Friedreich, libksysguard MR #464 and ksystemstats MR #129)

System Monitor now exposes top-level actions you can use to launch it and go straight to a specific page. These can be invoked from the app’s context menu, or via a global shortcut you set yourself. (Bernhard Friedreich, plasma-systemmonitor MR #427)

The Margins Separator widget is now added from the panel configuration dialog’s “Add New” menu, rather than the widget explorer sidebar. This matches how the similar spacer widget is added. (Antti Savolainen, plasma-workspace MR #6494 and plasma-desktop MR #3663)

The clipboard popup invoked with Meta+V now closes if it’s open when you press that keyboard shortcut a second time. (Kristem McWilliam, plasma-workspace MR #6450)

Improved how System Settings’ Shortcuts page handles being told to assign a shortcut that’s already assigned to something else. (David Bacskay-Nagy, KDE Bugzilla #484526 and KDE Bugzilla #489544)

KRunner now lets you evaluate fancy mathematical expressions more flexibly; in the past you could ask for sqrt(2) + 2 but not 2 + sqrt(2); now both are accepted. (Alex Cizinsky, KDE Bugzilla #496343)

Frameworks 6.26

The dialog that asks you if you want to launch or edit an executable text file (like a .desktop file) no longer gives you the opportunity to tell it to always do that thing. This behavior was making .desktop files un-launchable for people who selected the option to always open those types of files in a text editor. Anyone who wants to use this feature can still configure it in Dolphin’s settings. (Nate Graham, kio MR #2171)

After

Before

Removed the CFP franc from the list of common currencies, so it no longer shows up automatically for every currency conversion run using KRunner-powered searches. (Pellaeon Lin, kunitconversion MR #84)

Notable bug fixes

Plasma 6.6.4

Fixed a case where Plasma Keyboard could crash after Alt+Tabbing away from a window marked as “keep above others”. (Devin Lin, KDE Bugzilla #517087)

Worked around a bug added in Qt 6.11 that made some of Spectacle’s annotation tools unclickable. (Oliver Beard, KDE Bugzilla #515304)

Fixed a layout issue in the Activity Pager widget that made it look weird at specific non-default panel sizes. (Marco Martin, KDE Bugzilla #518451)

Plasma 6.6.5

Fixed a case where KWin could crash on logout when the session that’s closing had sent any emulated keyboard or mouse events. (Vlad Zahorodnii, kwin MR #9092)

Fixed an issue with the screen locker that could cause the buttons to malfunction and leave you unable to unlock after you pressed the Esc key in combination with various other actions with specific timings. (Akseli Lahtinen, KDE Bugzilla #515299)

Fixed an issue that made color picker functionality throughout the system return random colors on systems with certain graphics hardware. (Xaver Hugl, KDE Bugzilla #518770)

Fixed an issue that made the clock times shown on the lockscreen differ across the screens of a multi-screen setup. (DeepChirp, KDE Bugzilla #516479)

Fixed two issues that made network connections added from the Plasma setup wizard not always work properly. (Adam Williamson, KDE Bugzilla #514841 and plasma-setup MR #100)

Fixed a couple of cases where auto-hide panels might not hide properly when there were any unread notifications. (Patrick Cleary, KDE Bugzilla #519046)

Switching away from the Networks Widget in the System Tray no longer briefly makes a placeholder message appear. (Tobias Fella, KDE Bugzilla #511367)

Improved the reliability of the Weather Widget’s icon fallback behavior, making it less likely to show broken weather icons. (Ismael Asensio, kdeplasma-addons MR #1032)

Plasma 6.7

Fixed an issue that could make the Audio Volume widget not notice that a new audio device was connected and became the default one. (Oliver Beard, plasma-pa MR #393)

Using the clipboard’s non-default “Never save [non-text items] in history” option no longer breaks the ability to paste items that have been moved to the top of the clipboard history. (Christoph Wolk, KDE Bugzilla #514095)

Apps in the Quick Launch widget can once again be re-arranged. (Alex Folland, KDE Bugzilla #481922)

Fixed two quirky issues with Spectacle’s magnifier in Rectangular Region mode. (Noah Davis, KDE Bugzilla #509776 and KDE Bugzilla #509777)

Notable in performance & technical

Plasma 6.7

KWin now supports the Wayland session management protocol! This is an important step for apps to be able to remember their sizes and positions after restarting the system. The next step is for toolkits, libraries, and apps to implement support. We’re getting there! (Vlad Zahorodnii, KDE Bugzilla #436318)

Reduced the size of animated GIF images produced by apps like Spectacle that use KDE’s KPipeWire library. (Bernhard Friedrich, kpipewire MR #247)

How you can help

KDE has become important in the world, and your time and contributions have helped us get there. As we grow, we need your support to keep KDE sustainable.

Would you like to help put together this weekly report? Introduce yourself in the Matrix room and join the team!

Beyond that, you can help KDE by directly getting involved in any other projects. Donating time is actually more impactful than donating money. Each contributor makes a huge difference in KDE — you are not a number or a cog in a machine! You don’t have to be a programmer, either; many other opportunities exist.

You can also help out by making a donation! This helps cover operational costs, salaries, travel expenses for contributors, and in general just keeps KDE bringing Free Software to the world.

To get a new Plasma feature or a bug fix mentioned here

Push a commit to the relevant merge request on invent.kde.org.

Let’s go for my web review for the week 2026-16.

Sovereign Tech Agency funding - Mastodon Blog

Tags: tech, fediverse

This looks like an interesting agreement. E2EE messaging anyone? There is more of course, but I’m especially excited regarding this one.

https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2026/04/sovereign-tech-agency-funding/

You cannot use the GNU (A)GPL to take software freedom away

Tags: tech, foss, licensing, law

The FSF is now weighting in on the Euro-Office vs OnlyOffice situation. You have to respect the spirit of the AGPL and can’t take away freedom with extra clauses. Seems to make sense to me.

https://www.fsf.org/blogs/licensing/agpl-is-not-a-tool-for-taking-freedom-away

Europe should regulate Big Tech instead of banning kids from social media, Estonia says

Tags: tech, politics, europe

Looks like someone is actually paying attention to what’s going on.

https://www.politico.eu/article/europe-should-stand-up-to-big-tech-instead-of-imposing-social-media-bans-estonia-says/

The Utopia of the Family Computer

Tags: tech, internet, culture, time, history

Interesting piece, shows quite well how new technologies get in the home and then slowly expand. In the case of the Internet, it was indeed literally in a corner of the home before slowly being woven in our lives.

https://mudmapmagazine.com/the-utopia-of-the-family-computer/?ref=DenseDiscovery-384

On the acceptance of GenAI

Tags: tech, ai, machine-learning, gpt, ethics

Stop looking at the shiny toy, remember the ethics behind them…

https://smallsheds.garden/blog/2026/on-the-acceptance-of-genai/

Is Claude Mythos “Terrifying” or Just Hype?

Tags: tech, ai, machine-learning, copilot, marketing, hype, research

Are we surprised it’s mostly a PR stunt? Not at all. Of course, I agree a lot with the conclusion: we can’t trust any claim from those companies. They try to present themselves as labs but mostly try to disguise marketing as research…

https://calnewport.com/is-claude-mythos-terrifying-or-just-hype/

How I run multiple $10K MRR companies on a $20/month tech stack

Tags: tech, simplicity, complexity, performance, minimalism, infrastructure

There’s a whole swat of solutions for very lean services. You can go a long way reducing complexity as much as possible. Less infrastructure bills are definitely welcome.

https://stevehanov.ca/blog/how-i-run-multiple-10k-mrr-companies-on-a-20month-tech-stack

Put your SSH keys in your TPM chip!

Tags: tech, ssh, hardware, security

Comprehensive guide to have SSH keys stored in the TPM chip. Clearly it’s still a very manual process.

https://raymii.org/s/tutorials/Put_your_SSH_keys_in_your_TPM_chip.html

Supply chain nightmare: How Rust will be attacked and what we can do to mitigate the inevitable

Tags: tech, rust, supply-chain, security

Indeed, the current supply chain model of Rust could be better. While we wait for improvements (with no sign of them coming), there are ways to try to avoid some of the common pitfalls.

https://kerkour.com/rust-supply-chain-nightmare

No one owes you supply-chain security

Tags: tech, rust, supply-chain, security, foss

Can crates.io make things easier to secure? I do think so. But this post is right that we shouldn’t forget the social aspect of the whole supply chain security conversation.

https://purplesyringa.moe/blog/no-one-owes-you-supply-chain-security/

Rust is Just a Tool

Tags: tech, rust, tools, hype

This bears repeating of course. I still wish our industry would run less on hype. It’s not specific to Rust of course.

https://lewiscampbell.tech/blog/260204.html

Flat Error Codes Are Not Enough

Tags: tech, rust, failure

When possible it’s nice to nest your error types, this allows better investigation when something fails.

https://home.expurple.me/posts/flat-error-codes-are-not-enough/

C++26: Structured bindings in conditions

Tags: tech, c++

Looks like a small syntax adjustment, but that indeed open the door to nice improvements.

https://www.sandordargo.com/blog/2026/04/15/cpp26-structured-bindings-condition

The Global API Injection Pattern

Tags: tech, c++, dependencies, metaprogramming

This is indeed a nice pattern for dependency injection in C++ for global functions.

https://www.elbeno.com/blog/?p=1831

Can we finally use C++ Modules in 2026?

Tags: tech, c++

Probably not… This is really taking a long time to be adopted. It’s not an incremental thing at all, this doesn’t help.

https://mropert.github.io/2026/04/13/modules_in_2026/

Bring Back Idiomatic Design

Tags: tech, web, frontend, desktop, ux

Or why I tend to favor desktop applications (made by KDE as much as possible) rather than web applications whenever possible. It’s just more pleasant to have things which look and feel homogeneous.

https://essays.johnloeber.com/p/4-bring-back-idiomatic-design

The unwritten laws of software engineering

Tags: tech, engineering, failure, reliability

Those have no name… but you’ll encounter them regularly indeed.

https://newsletter.manager.dev/p/the-unwritten-laws-of-software-engineering

Writing design docs

Tags: tech, architecture, design, documentation, processes

A good primer about design documents. What’s nice about this one is the focus on the process rather than the form of the document. Indeed what matters is the shared understanding and making sure the right decision is made.

https://blog.ceejbot.com/posts/design-docs/

No agenda, no meeting

Tags: tech, meetings, documentation, remote-working

Of course I wish more meetings would follow this pattern… or not happen at all, sending me a proper document instead.

https://ben.balter.com/2026/04/06/no-agenda-no-meeting/

Technical Leadership is Leadership

Tags: tech, leadership, team

Short and to the point reminder: our job is never only about the tech. It always encompass some people related concerns, be it inside teams, between teams, or the impact on the users.

https://estherderby.com/technical-leadership-is-leadership/

Even Ohno’s Classic “5 Whys” Example Deserves Another Why

Tags: agile, lean, failure

A bit long for what it’s saying. And yet it’s a good reminder, don’t focus on why… Ask the question as many times as necessary to get to the point where you can find a solution which prevents issues to reappear.

https://www.leanblog.org/2026/04/ohno-5-whys-actually-seven/

Bye for now!

This April, KDE once again had a sprint in Graz, Austria. This one was deemed a "Mega Sprint" as unlike last year it was not just for Plasma, but for everything KDE-related from Plasma, goals, frameworks, apps, and more. We had a great turnout!

Amazingly I managed to go the whole trip this time without getting sick! 😊

We covered a lot of ground! Briefly, a few of the things off the top of my head:

Testing​

Improving reliability, ease of running locally, documentation, and ensuring that test failures are reported by the CI in merge requests. We have some work to do for all of these to improve our testing story, and we collectively came to important decisions on how to move forwards.

Gardening​

There is a lot, often not enough hours/energy to deal with it, and a lot of the time people just don't even know about the issue(s). Let's try: being more proactive about closing bad/stale MRs, creating a GitLab bot to help automate things that get people's attention, keep track of things by sending regular notices to the mailing list(s) similar to how the "failing ci" emails help people keep on top of things.

Gestures​

A complicated topic! We had a lot of good discussions about the user flow/UI/UX, and I think we came to a really good place that sets us up for some excellent custom gestures/bindings with the fantastic work by Jakob & Natalie.

This sort of work is a really great example of something that would have been very difficult to do online, that we broke through with a lot of back and forth conversation/explanation/design at the sprint — which is exactly why we get together to unblock these things and make quick progress together!

Plasma Keyboard​

We covered all of the large topics/issues that have been pending, for example: morekeys/full keyboard emulation, emojis, speech-to-text, Wayland protocols, testing, etc. So much that each could probably be its own blog post! We'll continue to see a whole lot of changes and improvements here; we really want plasma-keyboard to be a first-class experience for all sorts of input stories.

Graz​

We were once again in lovely Graz, and the weather was a very welcome change from the brutal winter we've had in Canada — still had ice and snow when I left home! In addition to the mostly sunny weather and chirping birds, the city and its people were just fantastic once again. 💙

I can't say enough just how lovely Graz is, and how glad I was to get to visit again. 🇦🇹 Special shout out to Kevin Krammer, our KDE local who did so much to make this sprint great for us!

The fact that Graz is a lovely place to go is good news, since this year we'll be hosting Akademy there — I am already looking forward to coming back! :D