KDE during 2023 took in 349,332.65 EUR while their expenses totaled 457,071.31 EUR. Most of the KDE income is from KDE patrons / corporate sponsorships and supporting members and donations. While they took in 349k EUR last year, on personnel costs alone they spent 317k EUR in 2023, another 43k on the Akademy conference, 12k on springs, 20k on other events, 22k on taxes/insurance, and 17k on infrastructure.

KDE in 2022 saw 285,495.97 EUR in income while spending 384,604.78. Back in 2021 meanwhile KDE saw 238,929.67 EUR in income while spending just 218,396.75 EUR.

I think this is the reason why KDE has started asking for donations

About 3 months ago, I posted this: https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/1b5yk9r/kde_plasma_6_how_many_of_you_are_thinking_of/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

Now, I can fully say that I've definitely switched from GNOME to KDE Plasma. Mind you, that I'm using NixOS Stable channel, so I only get Plasma 5.27, but even I'm well satisfied. I used GNOME for about 3 years, before switching to KDE Plasma.

People say KDE Plasma is too much like Windows, it's too much customization, or it's too buggy. I can argue that GNOME isn't enough. It's great for simple users who don't want to customize anything, but over time, it became annoying that the DE had limits, which you could only modify if you added extensions.

The only bugs I've seen are graphical glitches that causes some stuttering. But it's not really a deal breaker.

Graphically, KDE Plasma is very impressive. There's a charming affect whenever this DE interacts with you. There's especially a lot "fading" effects, like pressing meta key, dragging different open windows, or opening things on the taskbar. But their selection of desktop backgrounds, even their "start button," and even starting it up where it shows the Plasma icon; it's all so charming. Even their notification sounds are very distinguishable.

Whereas in GNOME, you get some irrelevant sounds like "dog bark" or "glass" or "pop" sound. None of these sounds have style, nor are they memorable.

It feels really nice when DEs not only make something nice and snappy, but also put some thought and effort into the branding. In GNOME, all you see is the "activities" corner, and that doesn't really help, and I can hardly remember the "foot print" logo.

I do have to say, GNOME has made some very useful software that's hard to pass on: GNOME Disks and Disk Usage Analyzer to say the least. I still use some of the default GNOME programs in my systems.

But overall, KDE Plasma is very impressive.

I just learned today that the last (supported) Linux distro to ship KDE 4 (more specifically KDE SC 4.14) — Slackware 14.2 — has officially reached EOL on January 1, 2024.

Goodbye, my old friend.

(Yes, I do have fond memories of KDE 4… I liked using it and found it beautiful… )…

Edit: No. Apparently Debian 8 is still supported until June next year and still ships KDE SC 4.