KDE Sprints 2015 fundraising

€15191 raised of a €38500 goal

[update] The fundraising campaign has been extended. We had intended to have ongoing updates from the Randa Meetings. However, developers were working rather than writing articles and blogposts. By extending the campaign, more information can be provided about what was actually accomplished.

For the sixth year, the KDE sprints in Randa, Switzerland will include key projects and top developers, working concurrently under one roof, free from noise and distractions.

The week-long Randa Meetings have been intense and productive, generating exceptional results. Expectations are high again this year. Most importantly, the Randa Meetings have produced significant breakthroughs that benefit all KDE software users and developers.

Randa Meetings participants donate their time to work on important KDE projects. The Randa Meetings organizers prepare meals and arrange breaks to maintain energy and effectiveness. Volunteer staff people take care of details that can interfere with the highly productive software development.

While the developers cover some of their own costs, there are still hard expenses like accommodation and travel to get the volunteer contributors to Randa. Having these expenses covered is a valuable incentive for Randa developers.

The theme of the 2015 Randa Meetings is Bring Touch to KDE. Participants will be working to expand touch capabilities in KDE applications for tablets, smartphones and other touch-enabled devices. These efforts will augment Plasma Mobile, the Free Mobile Platform announced on July 25th at Akademy 2015.

Some of the 2015 Randa projects are:

KDE Connect integrated communication for multiple devices

KDE apps on Android

digiKam photo management

GCompris educational software

Interface design

Personal Information Management

Kdenlive video editor

KDE and mobile integration with ownCloud user-controlled cloud storage and applications

Security and privacy

This year, the Randa Meetings fundraising campaign has been expanded to include all KDE sprints. In addition to the Randa Meetings, various KDE work teams gather for a few days throughout the year to make exceptional progress that simply would not be possible working only via the Internet and email. As one long-time Randa participant said:

In agile development, sprints are a very important element to push the project forward. While sprints can be done over the web, they are hindered by timezones, external distractions, availability of contributors, etc. In-person sprints are more productive as all the hindrances of the web meetings are eliminated and productivity is greatly enhanced overall.

The results of sprints are directly reflected in the quality of KDE software for users. Consequently, sprints and similar high impact get-togethers are one of the primary uses of funds within KDE. This means that the KDE Community consistently offers the best of Free and Open technology for anyone to use.

To support development sprints, we have set a fundraising goal of €38500. Would you make a donation to support KDE development? Any amount will help and is appreciated. The fundraising campaign has been extended until September 30 so that the participants at the Randa Meetings can report on what they accomplished.

Donors can choose to receive a memorable thank you from the Randa Meetings. If you want to receive such a thank you memento, please send an email to fundraiser@kde.org. Include your name and full mailing address.

Links:

All money received during this fundraising campaign will be used for KDE sprints, including the Randa Meetings.

If you prefer to use international bank transfers please see this page.

Please write us an email so we can add you to the list of donors manually.

List of donations