KDE Projects are projects maintained by the

KDE community KDE is an international free software community that develops free and open-source software. As a central development hub, it provides tools and resources that allow collaborative work on this kind of software. Well-known products include the ...

, a group of people developing and advocating free software for everyday use, for example KDE Plasma and

KDE Frameworks KDE Frameworks is a collection of libraries and software frameworks readily available to any Qt-based software stacks or applications on multiple operating systems. Featuring frequently needed functionality solutions like hardware integration, ...

or applications such as

Amarok Amarok may refer to: Music * Amarok (band), a Spanish progressive rock band * ''Amarok'' (Mike Oldfield album), 1990 * ''Amarok'' (Nargaroth album), 2000 * ''Amarok'', 2010 album by Francisco López (musician) Other uses * Amarok (wolf), in In ...

, Krita or Digikam. There are also non-coding projects like designing the Breeze desktop theme and iconset, which is coordinated by KDE's VisualDesignGroup. Even non-Qt applications like GCompris, which started as a GTK-based application, or web-based projects like WikiToLearn are officially part of KDE.

Overview

As of today there are many KDE projects that are either stand-alone or grouped into larger sub-projects: * KDE Plasma Workspaces *

(formerly KDE-Libs): A collection of

libraries A library is a collection of materials, books or media that are accessible for use and not just for display purposes. A library provides physical (hard copies) or digital access (soft copies) materials, and may be a physical location or a vir ...

that provides frameworks and functionality for developers * KDE Applications Bundle: Containing core applications like Konqueror, Dolphin, KWrite, and Konsole.

KDE Core projects

* Plasma – UI for multiple workspaces * KWin –

Window manager A window manager is system software that controls the placement and appearance of windows within a windowing system in a graphical user interface. Most window managers are designed to help provide a desktop environment. They work in conjunct ...

KHTML KHTML is a browser engine developed by the KDE project. It is the default engine of the Konqueror browser, but it has not been actively worked on since 2016. Moreover, KHTML will be discontinued for KDE Frameworks 6. Built on the KParts fra ...

– HTML rendering engine, forked into

WebKit WebKit is a browser engine developed by Apple and primarily used in its Safari web browser, as well as on the iOS and iPadOS version of any web browser. WebKit is also used by the BlackBerry Browser, PlayStation consoles beginning from the ...

in 2004 * KJS - JavaScript engine * KIO – Extensible network-transparent file access *

KParts KDE Frameworks is a collection of libraries and software frameworks readily available to any Qt-based software stacks or applications on multiple operating systems. Featuring frequently needed functionality solutions like hardware integration, ...

– Lightweight in-process graphical component framework *

XMLGUI XMLGUI is a KDE framework for designing the user interface of an application using XML, using the idea of actions. In this framework, the programmer designs various actions that their application can implement, with several actions defined for th ...

– Allows defining UI elements, such as menus and toolbars via

XML Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing arbitrary data. It defines a set of rules for encoding documents in a format that is both human-readable and machine-readable. ...

files *

Phonon In physics, a phonon is a collective excitation in a periodic, elastic arrangement of atoms or molecules in condensed matter, specifically in solids and some liquids. A type of quasiparticle, a phonon is an excited state in the quantum mechanical ...

– Multimedia framework *

Solid Solid is one of the four fundamental states of matter (the others being liquid, gas, and plasma). The molecules in a solid are closely packed together and contain the least amount of kinetic energy. A solid is characterized by structura ...

– Device integration framework *

Sonnet A sonnet is a poetic form that originated in the poetry composed at the Court of the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II in the Sicilian city of Palermo. The 13th-century poet and notary Giacomo da Lentini is credited with the sonnet's inventio ...

–

Spell checker In software, a spell checker (or spelling checker or spell check) is a software feature that checks for misspellings in a text. Spell-checking features are often embedded in software or services, such as a word processor, email client, electronic ...

* ThreadWeaver – Library to use

multiprocessor Multiprocessing is the use of two or more central processing units (CPUs) within a single computer system. The term also refers to the ability of a system to support more than one processor or the ability to allocate tasks between them. There ar ...

systems more effectively

KDE Applications

Major applications developed by KDE include: * Ark – Archiving tool * Dragon Player – Media player. *

Dolphin A dolphin is an aquatic mammal within the infraorder Cetacea. Dolphin species belong to the families Delphinidae (the oceanic dolphins), Platanistidae (the Indian river dolphins), Iniidae (the New World river dolphins), Pontoporiidae (t ...

–

File manager A file manager or file browser is a computer program that provides a user interface to manage files and folders. The most common operations performed on files or groups of files include creating, opening (e.g. viewing, playing, editing or print ...

* Gwenview –

Image viewer An image viewer or image browser is a computer program that can display stored graphical images; it can often handle various graphics file formats. Such software usually renders the image according to properties of the display such as color depth ...

Kate Kate name may refer to: People and fictional characters * Kate (given name), a list of people and fictional characters with the given name or nickname * Gyula Káté (born 1982), Hungarian amateur boxer * Lauren Kate (born 1981), American aut ...

–

Text editor A text editor is a type of computer program that edits plain text. Such programs are sometimes known as "notepad" software (e.g. Windows Notepad). Text editors are provided with operating systems and software development packages, and can be u ...

Konsole Konsole is a free and open-source terminal emulator graphical application which is part of KDE Applications and ships with the KDE desktop environment. Konsole was originally written by Lars Doelle. It ls licensed under the GPL-2.0-or-later and ...

–

Terminal emulator A terminal emulator, or terminal application, is a computer program that emulates a video terminal within some other display architecture. Though typically synonymous with a shell or text terminal, the term ''terminal'' covers all remote ter ...

Kontact Kontact is a personal information manager and groupware software suite developed by KDE. It supports calendars, contacts, notes, to-do lists, news, and email. It offers a number of inter-changeable graphical UIs (KMail, KAddressBook, Akregator, ...

–

Personal information manager A personal information manager (often referred to as a PIM tool or, more simply, a PIM) is a type of application software that functions as a personal organizer. The acronym PIM is now, more commonly, used in reference to personal information manag ...

featuring an

e-mail client An email client, email reader or, more formally, message user agent (MUA) or mail user agent is a computer program used to access and manage a user's email. A web application which provides message management, composition, and reception functio ...

, a

news client A newsreader is an application program that reads articles on Usenet distributed throughout newsgroups. Newsreaders act as clients which connect to a news server, via the Network News Transfer Protocol (NNTP), to download articles and post new ar ...

, a feed aggregator, to-do lists, etc. *

Konqueror Konqueror is a free and open-source web browser and file manager that provides web access and file-viewer functionality for file systems (such as local files, files on a remote FTP server and files in a disk image). It forms a core part of ...

–

Web browser A web browser is application software for accessing websites. When a user requests a web page from a particular website, the browser retrieves its files from a web server and then displays the page on the user's screen. Browsers are used on ...

and

* Kopete – Instant messaging client * Krita –

Raster graphics editor A raster graphics editor is a computer program that allows users to create and edit images interactively on the computer screen and save them in one of many raster graphics file formats (also known as bitmap images) such as JPEG, PNG, and GIF. ...

for

Digital painting Digital painting is an established art medium that typically combines a computer, a graphics tablet, and software of choice. The artist uses painting and drawing with the stylus that comes with the graphics tablet to create 2D paintings within ...

* Kdenlive –

Video editing software Video editing software, or a video editor is software used performing the post-production video editing of digital video sequences on a non-linear editing system. It has replaced traditional flatbed celluloid film editing tools and analog video t ...

Thematically related groups of applications

* KDE-Plasma-Addons: Additional Plasma widgets. * KDE-Network * KDE-Pim * KDE-Graphics * KDE-Multimedia * KDE-Accessibility: Accessibility applications. * KDE-Utilities * KDE-Edu *

Calligra Suite Calligra Suite is a graphic art and office suite by KDE. It is available for desktop PCs, tablet computers, and smartphones. It contains applications for word processing, spreadsheets, presentation, databases, vector graphics, and digit ...

: Integrated office suite * KDE-Games * KDE-Toys
KDE-Artwork
Additional icons, styles, etc. * KDE-SDK * KDE-Bindings *

KDEWebdev The KDE Gear (also known as the KDE Applications Bundle or KDE Applications) is a set of applications and supporting libraries that are developed by the KDE community, primarily used on Linux-based operating systems but mostly multiplatform, and ...

: Web development tools. * KDE-Extragear: Extragear is a collection of applications and tools that are not part of the core KDE Applications. * KDE-Playground: This repository contains new and unstable software. It is a place for applications to mature.

Other projects

KDE Connect KDE Connect is a multi-platform application developed by KDE, which facilitates wireless communications and data transfer between devices over local networks. KDE Connect is available in the repositories of many Linux Distributions and F-Droid ...

: An Android application to connect the Plasma desktop to phones for remote control * KDE neon: a distro featuring the latest KDE software packages on top of an Ubuntu base. *

Wiki2Learn WikiToLearn is a collaborative, international, free knowledge project, run entirely by volunteers, and dedicated to creating free and accessible textbooks for higher education. In December 2013, it joined the KDE Project through its incubation proc ...

: a wiki-based web framework for people to participate and share knowledge.

Development

Source code

The source code of every KDE project is stored in a source code repository using Git. Stable versions are released to the KDE FTP server in the form of

source code In computing, source code, or simply code, is any collection of code, with or without comment (computer programming), comments, written using a human-readable programming language, usually as plain text. The source code of a Computer program, p ...

with configure scripts, ready to be compiled by operating system vendors and to be integrated with the rest of their systems before distribution. Most vendors use only stable and tested versions of KDE programs or applications, providing it in the form of easily installable, pre-compiled packages.

Implementation

Most KDE projects are using the Qt framework, which runs on most Unix and

Unix-like A Unix-like (sometimes referred to as UN*X or *nix) operating system is one that behaves in a manner similar to a Unix system, although not necessarily conforming to or being certified to any version of the Single UNIX Specification. A Unix-li ...

systems (including

Mac OS X macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. Within the market of desktop and lapt ...

), and Microsoft Windows. CMake serves as the build tool. This allows KDE to support a wider range of platforms, including Windows. GNU gettext is used for translation.

Doxygen Doxygen ( ) is a documentation generator and static analysis tool for software source trees. When used as a documentation generator, Doxygen extracts information from specially-formatted comments within the code. When used for analysis, Doxyge ...

is used to generate api documentation.

Licensing

KDE software projects must be released under free licensing terms. In November 1998, the Qt framework was dual-licensed under the

free and open-source Free and open-source software (FOSS) is a term used to refer to groups of software consisting of both free software and open-source software where anyone is freely licensed to use, copy, study, and change the software in any way, and the source ...

Q Public License The Q Public License (QPL) is a non-copyleft license, created by Trolltech for its free edition of the Qt. It was used until Qt 3.0, as Trolltech toolkit version 4.0 was released under GPL version 2. It fails the Debian Free Software Guidelin ...

(QPL) and a commercial license for

proprietary software Proprietary software is computer software, software that is deemed within the free and open-source software to be non-free because its creator, publisher, or other rightsholder or rightsholder partner exercises a legal monopoly afforded by modern ...

developers. The same year, the KDE Free Qt foundation was created which guarantees that Qt would fall under a variant of the very liberal

BSD license BSD licenses are a family of permissive free software licenses, imposing minimal restrictions on the use and distribution of covered software. This is in contrast to copyleft licenses, which have share-alike requirements. The original BSD li ...

should Trolltech cease to exist or no free version of Qt be released during 12 months. Debate continued about compatibility with the GNU General Public License (GPL), hence in September 2000 Trolltech made the Unix version of the Qt libraries available under the GPL in addition to the QPL which eliminated the concerns of the

Free Software Foundation The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization founded by Richard Stallman on October 4, 1985, to support the free software movement, with the organization's preference for software being distributed under copyleft ("s ...

. Trolltech continued to require licenses for developing

with Qt. The core libraries of KDE are collectively licensed under the GNU LGPL but the only way for proprietary software to make use of them was to be developed under the terms of the Qt proprietary license. Starting with Qt 4.5, Qt was also made available under the LGPL version 2.1, now allowing proprietary applications to legally use the open source Qt version.