Konqi and KDE dragons of different abilities!

Welcome to the KDE Community! By joining our team, you will be part of an international effort by thousands of people working to deliver a stunning Free Software computing experience. You will meet new friends, learn new skills and make a difference to millions of users while working with people from all around the globe. This page will give you a brief introduction to things everyone in KDE should know, and help you get started with contributing.

We want to make sure that the KDE Community remains a welcoming and friendly place where people can feel comfortable. We ask you to abide by the KDE Community Code of Conduct when interacting with the rest of the KDE Community.

Start Here!

KDE wants to make it easy to get involved! Various KDE members are available to help new contributors; you can find them listed on the Mentoring page. Many of them hang out in the #kde-welcome Matrix room. Feel free to ask them any questions you may have!

Beyond that, the best way to contribute is to start at the top of this list and work your way down:

If you've found a problem with a piece of KDE software or have an idea for an improvement, report it to the developers! QA is critically important to ensure quality, and you can be involved in an effort to make sure that our users are happy with the final products. Find out more about issue reporting.

If you'd like to take the next step in contributing to KDE, help triage all those Bugzilla tickets that people are filing! By separating the wheat from the chaff, you will help developers figure out which issues they need to work on and help them get the information they need to fix them. You don't need any programming experience to triage Bugzilla tickets, and it's a perfect introduction if you want to eventually become a developer but don't feel like your programming experience is good enough yet. Find out more about helping squash bugs in KDE software.

By becoming a developer in the KDE community, you can affect millions by writing and improving world-class software used around the globe. There are many small jobs available, so you don't even need to be a programmer to start developing for KDE! In the process you'll learn portable, industry-standard skills like C++, Qt, and CMake, and collaborate with people from all around the world. It's a challenging and fun experience. Find out more about becoming a KDE developer.

Are you fluent in multiple languages? By contributing your translations of the text in the user interfaces of KDE software, you can make it more pleasant for you to use, and open it up to millions of potential new users. Find out more about becoming a KDE translator.

Whether you are an artist, a designer, or just someone with an interest in how regular people interact with software, you are welcome to join the KDE Visual Design Group! The VDG makes KDE software both beautiful and usable by helping teams design and refine their user interfaces. This includes creating icons and themes, as well as thinking and researching how to help users do what they are trying to do. By joining this team, you can help make KDE's users happier and more productive. Find out more about joining the VDG.

Even with the best-designed software, users will need documentation to help them do what they want and get the most out of it. The KDE Community values good-quality documentation, and those who write it. The work of this team has one of the biggest impacts on end-users. Find out more about joining the KDE documentation team.

Sometimes users will run into trouble, or have questions, and not be able to find help or answers on their own. They will need someone to provide guidance and help. The KDE Community provides several platforms for users to ask for support from other users, so it is very important that there are other users ready to give that support. Find out more about providing user support.

Do you know how to get the word out on the street? As part of the promo team, you'll help spread the word about KDE to people who don't know the amazing things we make. You'll be part of a great team of people who are moving the world! Find out more about spreading the word about KDE.

KDE's web presence helps people learn about all the cool things that KDE does and how to get it! The web team works heavily with the VDG and Promo teams, as it is right at the intersection of visual design and publicity. As a member of the KDE web team, you will work on websites seen by millions and learn portable, industry-standard skills like Jekyll, Drupal, Wordpress, and more. Find out more about joining the KDE web design team.

Part of reaching as wide an audience as possible includes making KDE software easy to use for people with visual, auditory and motor disabilities. Whether you are familiar with the techniques and technologies involved in this or are just keen to help out, your help will be enthusiastically welcomed. Find out more about making KDE software more accessible.

The Gardening team constitutes KDE's management, which helps make everything else work more smoothly. If you are "big picture" person, enjoy working with many different types of people and helping them communicate and work together, or have grand ideas regarding how to help grow KDE overall, this is the place for you! Find out more about being a manager in KDE.

KDE is a mostly volunteer community made up of people just like you! But not everything in this world is free--including web and file hosting costs, airfare to KDE events, and even hiring some full-time employees. If you would like to help KDE purchase the goods and services necessary to continue producing amazing free software, consider donating. Find out more about making a financial donation to KDE.

If you have a project already that you want to bring into KDE, we have an incubation programme to help make that happen. Find out more about making your software a KDE project.

Beginner-friendly projects

Here are some beginner-friendly projects with a variety of opportunities to contribute:

Elisa, a KDE music player

Krita, a KDE digital painting suite

KDE Connect, a tool to connect and integrate your mobile device

Projects in need of extra love

Here are some critically important projects that are in need of more development. The bugs and feature requests found on these pages are especially suitable for an experienced developer looking to make a big impact fast!

Dolphin, a powerful and user-friendly file manager

Gwenview, a robust image viewer

Okular, a feature-filled document viewer

Spectacle, a flexible screenshot tool

Skanlite, a powerful scanning tool

Discover, an App store and package updater

PIM, a collection of personal information management applications

KIO, which provides I/O operations and the file dialogs

KWallet, a password manager

Getting in touch and working together

Part of being in a community involves talking to the other members. Courtesy and politeness are expected. KDE members use a variety of different venues to communicate, depending on the topic.

To report a bug or request a new feature, use bugs.kde.org. The KDE Bugzilla bug tracker is intended for user-to-developer communication and tracks simple bug reports and feature requests. Sign in with your KDE Bugzilla account; it does not use identity.kde.org credentials. If you don't have a KDE Bugzilla account, sign up for one here. More information about the KDE Bugzilla bug tracker is available here.

To track and discuss work, use Phabricator tasks. Phabricator is intended for developer-to-developer task planning and tracking, such as discussing the implementation of a complex feature or coordinating a promotional campaign. Sign into Phabricator with the username and password for your identity.kde.org account; if you don't have one, sign up for one here. Then return to https://phabricator.kde.org, click the "Log In" button at the top of the page, and enter the username and password for your KDE Identity account. More information about Phabricator is available here.

To start a short, goal-driven discussion, use Internet Relay Chat, Matrix or Telegram, depending on your preference. These conversations should ideally result in the generation of a patch, task, or bug report.

To start a long-term, open-ended discussion, mailing lists are best. You don't need to subscribe to them all; just a few will do. As a new member of the KDE Community, you should at least subscribe to kde-community and kde-devel. You will need to subscribe before you can send mail to the lists.

The links in the #Start_Here! section will take you to pages with more specific information, including how to get in touch with specific teams.

More entry points

KDE participates in a variety of external programs to introduce new contributors to KDE, including the Google Summer of Code and the Outreach Program for Women. KDE also runs its own programs, such as Season of KDE.