KDE has announced it’s getting a €1.28 million grant from the Sovereign Tech Fund (STF) to help improve the Plasma desktop, KDE Linux and the communication frameworks used by both.
The German government-backed fund, which sees its work as “strategic investments in the digital infrastructure of our economy and society”, will disburse €1,285,200 ($1,512,680) to KDE across 2026 and 2027.
Like all grants the fund provides, the money is earmarked for a specific set of pre-approved projects. KDE developers can’t redirect cash toward the latest feature request gathering upvotes on r/KDE.
Work the money will fund includes improving the Plasma and KDE Linux (which launched in alpha last year) QA infrastructure, improving ‘recoverability mechanisms’ on the former and implementing factory reset functionality on the latter.
The funding will also support projects on configuration management, network shares and work on enhancing the KDE PIM suite, including IMAP4rev2 and WebDAV push notifications as well as better integration in Flatpak formats.
“It’s exciting to have the opportunity to strengthen KDE’s foundations and better serve a society that increasingly values its digital rights”, says Aleix Pol, president of KDE e.V.
This isn’t the first time the STF has invested in a major Linux desktop environment. In 2023 it gave GNOME €1m to help improve aspects of the desktop, including around accessibility.
The Sovereign Tech Fund is a programme of the Sovereign Tech Agency, a German government-backed body that was set up to do what’s needed: invest in and strengthen open-source infrastructure that much of the modern world benefits from, but rarely pays for.
“We have long invested in desktop technologies for a reason. They are the primary way people access and use digital services in everyday life”, Fiona Krakenbürger, technical director at the Sovereign Tech Agency, which oversees approval and disbursement of the fund, says.
“Strengthening KDE’s testing infrastructure, security architecture, and communication frameworks is how we invest in the resilience and reliability of the core digital infrastructure that modern society depends on”, she adds.
Thanks Richard