About KDE
What is KDE?
KDE is an international community that has been building and distributing free, open-source software for digital devices since 1996. Anyone can use KDE’s software for free, or help build it.
What specifically has KDE built?
Today KDE is best known for some of its flagship products:
- Plasma, a graphical desktop environment for computers
- Krita, a professional-caliber digital painting program
- Kdenlive, a professional-caliber video editor
- Gcompris, an educational game used in schools around the world
These and other pieces of KDE software are used by major institutions around the world, including but not limited to NASA, NATO, CERN, Mercedes, the Steam Deck, the Chrome and Safari web browsers (and their derivatives), various government agencies throughout Europe, public schools in Brazil, Spain, and India, and the Ukrainian armed forces.
Learn more about who KDE software is for. (hint: you)
KDE is about freedom
All the software that KDE produces is “free and open-source” (often called “FOSS” or “FLOSS”). This means that everyone has the freedom to use, study, change, and re-distribute it, free of charge. KDE software contains no ads, spyware, subscription services, forced updates, secret crypto-mining or AI training, or any other forms of user-hostile malware.
See KDE’s licensing policy for more information.
How does KDE make any money by giving everything away for free?
KDE is a voluntary community, not a for-profit company. The bulk of KDE contributors are either volunteers, or sponsored by companies or public institutions to work on KDE software.
Nevertheless, some contributors are employed by KDE e.V., the German non-profit organization that legally represents KDE. To fund these and other expenses (such as infrastructure, travel, and event hosting), KDE e.V. receives donations from individuals and companies making use of KDE software.
KDE e.V. also manages KDE’s relationship with the KDE Free Qt Foundation, which governs KDE’s legal arrangement with the Qt Group.
You can make an individual donation or become a corporate supporting member.
Is it hard to start volunteering for KDE?
Not at all! Every day more and more people join KDE’s ever-growing family of contributors. KDE has a strong network of resources and mentors, and participates in student-focused programs like Google Summer of Code and Season of KDE.
But most importantly, KDE offers the opportunity to join a software project with massive worldwide impact that doesn’t make ethical compromises or get bogged down by middle managers.
By volunteering with KDE, you’ll make friends around the world and hone professional skills in whatever you choose to get involved with — examples include software development, graphical and UI design, project management, promotion, and quality assurance.
Of course, it also helps to have a proactive attitude and a friendly personality. Get involved today!
What do the letters “K D E” stand for?
At one point, they stood for “Kool Desktop Environment”, the name of versions 1-3 of KDE’s flagship desktop environment.
The name was a riff on “CDE” (an abbreviation of “Common Desktop Environment”), which at the time was a popular graphical environment for UNIX workstations.
By 2009, the people working on KDE realized that their labors had produced much more than just successful replacement for CDE; they had built an entire ecosystem of free software. Thus, they decided to re-brand and gave the name “KDE” to the community itself, with the graphical desktop environment being renamed to “Plasma.”
KDE itself stands for human flourishing through free, non-exploitative, non-monopolistic software, but today the letters themselves are not part of an acronym and don’t have a specific meaning.