Get ready for week 84 in KDE’s Usability & Productivity initiative! 84 weeks is a lot of weeks, and in fact the end is in sight for the U&P initiative. I’d say it’s been a huge success, but all good things must come to an end to make room for new growth! In fact, KDE community members have submitted many new goals, which the community will be able to vote on soon, with the three winners being unveiled at Akademy next month.

But fear not, for the spirit of the Usability & Productivity initiative has suffused the KDE community, and I expect a lot of really cool U&P related stuff to happen even after the initiative has formally ended–including the long-awaited projects of PolicyKit support and mounted Samba and NFS shares in KIO and Dolphin! These projects are making steady progress and I hope to have them done in the next few months, plugging some longstanding holes in our software.

And finally, I’ll be continuing these weekly blog posts for the foreseeable future! It’s just too much fun to stop. Anyway, here’s what we’ve got this week:

New Features

Bugfixes & Performance Improvements

User Interface Improvements

If you’re getting the sense that KDE’s momentum is accelerating, you’re right. More and more new people are appearing all the time, and I am constantly blown away by their passion and technical abilities. We are truly blessed by… you! This couldn’t happen without the KDE community–both our contributors for making this warp factor 9 level of progress possible, and our users for providing feedback, encouragement, and being the very reason for the project to exist. And of course, the overlap between the two allows for good channels of communication to make sure we’re on the right track.

Many of those users will go on to become contributors, just like I did once. In fact, next week, your name could be in this list! Not sure how? Just ask! I’ve helped mentor a number of new contributors recently and I’d love to help you, too! You can also check out https://community.kde.org/Get_Involved, and find out how you can help be a part of something that really matters. You don’t have to already be a programmer. I wasn’t when I got started. Try it, you’ll like it! We don’t bite!

If you find KDE software useful, consider making a tax-deductible donation to the KDE e.V. foundation.