Thomas blogged recently about how he Joined the Game. This means that Thomas has chosen, in addition to giving up his time for KDE, to also support KDE by making a financial contribution as an individual supporting member of KDE e.V.

You might be wondering what happens to Thomas’s money. He might be too. So here is my personal perspective.

Some things Thomas and I did at Akademy

KDE e.V. has financially supported me by assisting with travel expenses on a couple of occasions – most recently by meeting just over half of my costs of getting to this year’s Akademy. Without that support, it is unlikely that I could have attended for the whole week.

Going to Akademy meant that I could write several Dot articles while there, help with other articles and edit and publish the articles to the Dot. It also enabled me to get KDE featured on Distrowatch Weekly and in LinuxFormat magazine and TechRadar, take quite a few photos that were used in the above stories, chair a talks session and give a couple of presentations.

That would all have been either impossible or very much harder without being at Akademy. Financial contributions like those from Thomas make it possible.

Sprints Thomas has helped to make possible

Editing on the Dot, it seems now that a month never goes past without news of some KDE contributor sprint or attendance at a conference. These are sometimes supported by local sponsors, but often KDE e.V. assists with travel and/or accommodation expenses. Here are just a few of the sprints from the past six months, found by quickly searching Dot articles:

If you have a read through of those articles, I think you’ll find that they were pretty worthwhile for the future of KDE software.

Join the Game

KDE depends on the time and efforts of hundreds of active contributors. You can get involved, but if you have not got time to contribute, you can still help others to contribute for you, without them having to worry about extra costs.

In return for 100 Euros per year, you get a membership card and a little numbered playing piece. But much more than that, you get to know that every time you see KDE praised in the press or you use our software, you helped to make it happen. You get to be a part of KDE and that is pretty special.

To Thomas, and our other individual supporting members: thank you for being part of KDE and making awesome stuff possible.

If you can, please Join the Game.