“Bring Back [obscure feature]!”

Did a feature you love disappear from your Free Software project of choice? Before kicking up a fuss on Reddit, read this.

I think that KDE’s track record shows that devs do not remove stuff just because. Quite the contrary.

But sometimes things do get removed (the desktop cube? grouping apps in one window?) and often it is because or the feature is unmaintained, been so for a while and starting to suffer from bit-rot; or because it is built on some old technology that cannot be replicated in the new environment without a complete rewrite.

In both cases, the reason a feature does not get re-implemented boils down to a lack of resources: the people who could do the job, can’t because there are so many other things to do, many of which are vital to the survival of the overall project.

Fortunately, the solution is simple: do your part.

KDE is a porous, grassroots and welcoming community. Join us and become part of the effort to build one of the largest and most diverse collections of end user, publicly-owned, free software projects in existence.

I know, I know: “but I can’t code”, etc., etc. But there are many things you can do to help. You can help organise Akademy 2024 for starters. Or you can translate menus and system messages, you can write documentation, paint a wallpaper, design icons, edit videos, support booth staff at events, triage and report bugs, or just donate and contribute to financially supporting devs who still have to hold down pesky day jobs that get in the way of coding for KDE… The list goes on and on.

The point is, regardless of your level of technical knowledge, the more resources you free up elsewhere, the more time the people who do know how to code will have to maintain and translate software and features in the new Plasma 6 environment.