On the 30th anniversary of KDE's original announcement, long-time contributor Cornelius Schumacher reflects on joining the project in 1999, the values of digital freedom it embodies, how its community keeps renewing itself, and the goals it set for enterprise, documentation and styling.
Thirty Years of KDE
When I joined KDE in 1999 I already thought of it as a mature project. I used the KDE desktop every day, and I was delighted with what it could do and how it felt. I had no idea that this would be one of the most impactful decisions of my life, or where it would lead me.
Today we are celebrating the 30th anniversary of the original announcement of KDE. The project is still alive and kicking. I still use it every day, just like millions of other people. Not only because it's great software, but because of the values it embodies.
KDE stands for freedom and being able to shape your own destiny. As the KDE vision says: "A world in which everyone has control over their digital life and enjoys freedom and privacy." While I originally joined for the technology, this is what made me stay.
One of my favorite pictures illustrating the spirit of the community is the group picture of Akademy in Dublin in 2006. Brilliant people having fun working towards a shared purpose of digital freedom.
KDE gets a wonderful present for its birthday. The KDE documentary is premiering today. It tells the story of the founding, the rapid early development, and the license conflicts. How it became a solid product used by many people, and then put it all at risk with KDE 4. How we learned from that and turned it into this extremely resilient and lively community it still is today. I'm happy I could contribute to this story, and that I'm one of the people telling it in the documentary.
For me, KDE shaped my career and my life, and gave me the opportunity to grow and learn. It led to things I would never have expected when I started: my code running on millions of computers, talking to hundreds of developers at conferences, sitting at the negotiation table with Nokia in Helsinki, consulting as an expert in the German parliament. And much more.
Today, KDE is maybe stronger than ever. We reached a lot of new users with the Steam Deck. The Sovereign Tech Fund is investing more than a million euros in KDE. With the strategic goals the community set this year, we are addressing enterprise, documentation, and styling. It shows how much the project has matured, beyond what I could ever have imagined. It also shows in its contributors. While contributors leave over time, new generations come in every year and keep the community growing over the long run, combining stability and rejuvenation.
I'm proud and grateful. Proud of what the KDE community achieved. Grateful that I could be part of this amazing group of people. A team nobody could have hired.
