1 00:00:01,077 --> 00:00:09,057 Take it away I would like to immediately hand off our president Aleix is it working? 2 00:00:09,257 --> 00:00:16,717 Yes, it looks green so yeah, thanks everyone for joining us today we will be 3 00:00:16,717 --> 00:00:18,577 talking about what we've been up to, 4 00:00:19,257 --> 00:00:25,337 we being the KTV board I hope everybody knows what the KTV is if you don't, 5 00:00:25,337 --> 00:00:27,697 I think we're going to have a Q&A session later, 6 00:00:28,517 --> 00:00:31,337 Or will we have a buff over during the week? 7 00:00:31,597 --> 00:00:34,417 We will also have a buff. We will also have a buff. We're going to be amazing. 8 00:00:36,377 --> 00:00:41,137 For starters, let's introduce ourselves. I'm going to start because I have the microphone. 9 00:00:41,897 --> 00:00:46,117 My name is Aleix. I'm from Barcelona, living in Berlin. And I've been on the 10 00:00:46,117 --> 00:00:49,197 KDP board for maybe eight years now. 11 00:00:50,077 --> 00:00:52,017 And I'm the president right now. 12 00:00:53,857 --> 00:01:01,917 Hello, I'm Lydia. I'm the vice president, live in Berlin, on the board for 10 or something years. 13 00:01:04,597 --> 00:01:08,677 Hello, I'm Eike. I'm the treasurer on the board. I have been for the past seven 14 00:01:08,677 --> 00:01:13,277 years, so I make sure we don't go broke, which we haven't yet, which is great. 15 00:01:14,097 --> 00:01:19,437 I'm apparently Dr. Adrien de Groot. And I've been on the board also for six 16 00:01:19,437 --> 00:01:21,517 years now and six years before then. 17 00:01:23,557 --> 00:01:27,637 I'm Nick Graham. I boast none of those credentials. So I make up for it with 18 00:01:27,637 --> 00:01:31,197 pluckiness and enthusiasm in my two years on the board. 19 00:01:35,637 --> 00:01:41,917 So, well, just to mention, we have three-year mandates. dates and it happens 20 00:01:41,917 --> 00:01:46,917 that this year there's no ending so it seems like there's not gonna be an election this AGM. 21 00:01:47,137 --> 00:01:51,937 The AGM this year we're gonna have it detached from Academy like unlike we normally do. 22 00:01:52,077 --> 00:01:57,597 This is a first time thing but not really first time because last year happened what happened. 23 00:01:59,777 --> 00:02:04,537 But be mindful it's gonna be in a few weeks online. 24 00:02:06,297 --> 00:02:13,357 First of all our new members we had seven new members much like, 25 00:02:14,117 --> 00:02:18,317 last year and two years ago thank you very much for joining us Bart, 26 00:02:18,457 --> 00:02:24,817 James, Emir Joshua, Julius Andre and Kisaragi and two pending two pending. 27 00:02:28,234 --> 00:02:34,554 Adding to that, Academy tends to be the day when a lot of people join the KDEV 28 00:02:34,554 --> 00:02:38,654 or maybe are suggested to become members. So use that opportunity if you can. 29 00:02:39,454 --> 00:02:43,574 We don't just have members in KDEV. We also have supporting members, 30 00:02:43,854 --> 00:02:45,834 people who support us financially. 31 00:02:46,494 --> 00:02:52,334 We have a very sharp increase in supporting members in the last year. 32 00:02:52,334 --> 00:02:58,694 You can see that going from 53 paying members to 719 is a big jump. 33 00:02:59,414 --> 00:03:06,014 We refreshed our donation infrastructure. We have new ways to donate that have 34 00:03:06,014 --> 00:03:10,114 gotten great feedback and I think are easier to use. 35 00:03:10,234 --> 00:03:13,414 And we've also advertised them a lot to great effect. So that's fantastic. 36 00:03:14,014 --> 00:03:19,254 The same is true for many other ways to donate to KDE via GitHub and via other forums. 37 00:03:19,374 --> 00:03:22,314 We see an uptick there as well. So we are very happy with that. 38 00:03:25,594 --> 00:03:32,934 Oh, still me. We are very happy that all our fantastic patrons are still with us. 39 00:03:32,994 --> 00:03:36,694 These are our corporate supporting members, so organizations rather than individuals. 40 00:03:37,694 --> 00:03:40,774 These are all a fantastic, loyal bunch. 41 00:03:41,034 --> 00:03:45,734 Many of them have been with us for many years. Many of them also sponsor Academy. 42 00:03:46,354 --> 00:03:52,314 We don't have any new ones to report this year. So if you are in touch with 43 00:03:52,314 --> 00:03:55,594 any company that benefits from KDE or sees a value in what we do, 44 00:03:55,714 --> 00:03:58,094 maybe talk to them about it. 45 00:04:00,939 --> 00:04:07,039 And talking is what we do with the KDE EV advisory board. This includes our corporate sponsors. 46 00:04:07,219 --> 00:04:11,979 It also includes friends and affiliated organizations, Blue Systems, 47 00:04:12,139 --> 00:04:17,839 Canonical, City of Munich, well known for their Linux shenanigans. 48 00:04:18,199 --> 00:04:23,639 The Debian Project, The Document Foundation, FOSS Nigeria, friends from way 49 00:04:23,639 --> 00:04:27,899 back, the FSF and the FSFE, G10 Code, one of our sponsors. 50 00:04:27,899 --> 00:04:33,619 Resource uh kubuntu focus we're always happy to see kde oriented hardware in 51 00:04:33,619 --> 00:04:39,439 the room ambition open uk i can't say anything nice about ambition sorry um 52 00:04:39,439 --> 00:04:42,599 open uk and the osi the cute group our, 53 00:04:44,099 --> 00:04:51,879 grand parents i guess uh slimbook suza and tuxedo computers this forms our advisory 54 00:04:51,879 --> 00:04:56,279 board we have regular quarterly calls with them to talk about what's on their 55 00:04:56,279 --> 00:04:58,319 mind and what's on in our plans. 56 00:04:58,799 --> 00:05:06,479 Other partners and affiliations that we have as KDEV, community partners, Lix, the Qt project. 57 00:05:06,699 --> 00:05:10,279 So that's the open source angle there. 58 00:05:10,439 --> 00:05:15,859 Verein Randa meetings, everyone remembers the Randa get togethers fondly. 59 00:05:17,339 --> 00:05:21,099 And we hope to get them up and going again sometime in the future. 60 00:05:21,099 --> 00:05:24,519 Sure. KDE Spain organizes, among other things, Academy España. 61 00:05:26,099 --> 00:05:31,559 We're friends with GNOME over the Linux Application Summit, the Chaos Working Group. 62 00:05:32,019 --> 00:05:36,079 And on the right-hand column, you can see the rest of our friends, 63 00:05:36,119 --> 00:05:41,379 including the Document Foundation, Oasis, OAN, and the Open Source Initiative. 64 00:05:44,708 --> 00:05:49,668 Moving on to our staff and contractors, people that work for us. 65 00:05:50,008 --> 00:05:55,108 Aside from the community, there's the people that we employ to get things done. 66 00:05:56,288 --> 00:06:00,168 First and foremost, Petra Gillert, who has been with us for a long time. 67 00:06:00,548 --> 00:06:07,228 In the KDE ECO space, we have Joseph and fairly new Nicole, who's over there. Hi. 68 00:06:08,268 --> 00:06:15,568 Yeah, we'll go through you in more detail. Anika and Paul, our goals have just been renewed. 69 00:06:15,788 --> 00:06:20,328 We also have renewed our goals project coordinator, Farid Abdel-Nour, 70 00:06:20,468 --> 00:06:22,308 will be taking over that role. 71 00:06:23,328 --> 00:06:25,708 We have events via Dina. 72 00:06:27,988 --> 00:06:36,188 We've also completed some projects. Ingo has completed the App Store support engineer role. 73 00:06:36,828 --> 00:06:40,428 I should go back and mention Tiago as our documentation writer. 74 00:06:40,428 --> 00:06:42,588 He's been mentioned in some of the talks this morning as well. 75 00:06:43,128 --> 00:06:46,168 Natalie just gave a great hardware integration talk. 76 00:06:47,088 --> 00:06:50,748 Jacob will be joining her in the hardware integration space. 77 00:06:51,468 --> 00:06:58,728 Nicholas does stuff. And we had a brief stint with Kuntal Bar adding to the lab prod. 78 00:06:58,888 --> 00:07:01,108 But for more details about all of these people. 79 00:07:03,348 --> 00:07:08,728 All right, let's start with Petra. Petra is amazing and makes sure that we get 80 00:07:08,728 --> 00:07:13,968 our stuff done by helping us maintain the office, taking care of accounting and paperwork. 81 00:07:15,088 --> 00:07:19,628 That would drive us crazy. She's also making sure that you all get paid if you 82 00:07:19,628 --> 00:07:21,448 want reimbursements and stuff. 83 00:07:23,388 --> 00:07:27,108 Helping organize meetings and, yeah, generally helping us stay on top of things. 84 00:07:29,108 --> 00:07:36,288 And then we have Dina, who is helping us put up events with all the amazing 85 00:07:36,288 --> 00:07:40,788 volunteer organizers, both for Academy and the Linux App Summit. 86 00:07:42,968 --> 00:07:46,908 And now Farid joined us. 87 00:07:47,108 --> 00:07:53,268 Just as we are starting a new round of goals, Farid will be taking on the support 88 00:07:53,268 --> 00:07:57,208 of all the gold champions and making sure that we talk about the goals and that 89 00:07:57,208 --> 00:08:01,488 the gold champions have everything they need and that the goals are moving forward. 90 00:08:01,488 --> 00:08:08,468 And he will also be looking into grants to support the goals more, 91 00:08:10,128 --> 00:08:17,848 and then we have nicole and joseph who are here and they're doing amazing kde eco stuff, 92 00:08:18,928 --> 00:08:23,408 joseph has put a ton of work into getting us a new grant so that we can now 93 00:08:23,408 --> 00:08:29,348 have him and nicole work on the new project nachhaltige software für nachhaltige 94 00:08:29,348 --> 00:08:31,948 hardware sustainable software for sustainable hardware. 95 00:08:32,848 --> 00:08:36,608 And yeah, generally helping us rally people around hardware sustainability, 96 00:08:37,048 --> 00:08:40,428 software sustainability, and how we can support all that. 97 00:08:42,845 --> 00:08:48,365 And that is on to marketing. Yeah, on the subject of marketing, 98 00:08:48,485 --> 00:08:50,845 we have Anika and Paul who are in the audience here. 99 00:08:50,945 --> 00:08:56,025 They are fantastic marketing contractors who help us with promotion and organization 100 00:08:56,025 --> 00:08:59,365 of promotional activities in a million and one ways. 101 00:08:59,585 --> 00:09:04,025 They have been organizing lots of participation in events this year, 102 00:09:04,125 --> 00:09:08,265 have personally attended and helped community members attend a whole bunch of events. 103 00:09:08,265 --> 00:09:13,665 They also help to write the release announcements for Plasma and Gear, 104 00:09:13,905 --> 00:09:21,065 and overall make sure that KDE is well represented in the minds of people in our community's orbit. 105 00:09:21,065 --> 00:09:24,125 Bit and next moving on we've 106 00:09:24,125 --> 00:09:27,225 got uh natalie for our hardware integrator and 107 00:09:27,225 --> 00:09:30,805 soon to be jacob natalie has been with us for about a year and a half and she's 108 00:09:30,805 --> 00:09:35,345 been doing great work on power management which is always very relevant to the 109 00:09:35,345 --> 00:09:40,565 hardware integration story especially as so much of our software is distributed 110 00:09:40,565 --> 00:09:44,705 on mobile devices these days um sold by some of our partner 111 00:09:44,865 --> 00:09:48,765 vendors and Jacob is going to be joining her very soon with a, 112 00:09:48,785 --> 00:09:52,105 um, a project with the framework laptop people. 113 00:09:56,545 --> 00:10:01,125 Then, uh, Ingo was working with us up until, uh, February. 114 00:10:01,345 --> 00:10:05,565 So starting this year, we'd been working together, uh, for a couple of years. 115 00:10:06,725 --> 00:10:11,645 Um, maybe more, uh, we did a lot of work on making sure that applications can 116 00:10:11,645 --> 00:10:15,425 get delivered on especially Android and Windows, 117 00:10:15,685 --> 00:10:19,225 but also we did some work on other platforms like in Linux, 118 00:10:19,385 --> 00:10:24,845 it was a lot of work in our GitLab infrastructure and making sure that, 119 00:10:24,845 --> 00:10:31,305 well, craft things also work, which is the tool we use for implementing things on these platforms. 120 00:10:32,245 --> 00:10:36,045 Then Nicolas has been, oh, hi. 121 00:10:37,985 --> 00:10:41,625 We don't have a picture here, but the real thing is over there. 122 00:10:43,125 --> 00:10:49,485 Uh, he's been helping us, um, lead on the Qt 6 port when we started, which was, um, 123 00:10:49,865 --> 00:10:54,865 sometime last year without, okay, let's make sure that the sixness of things 124 00:10:54,865 --> 00:11:01,405 happens in the best of, uh, conditions, and then we'll start looking into other, um, ventures. 125 00:11:01,645 --> 00:11:04,925 Uh, we did some of QML tooling as well as, uh, 126 00:11:04,945 --> 00:11:08,505 now he's starting to work on documentation which is i think going to be a super 127 00:11:08,505 --> 00:11:11,945 project and i hope that you will all support him into making sure that it happens 128 00:11:11,945 --> 00:11:15,505 because it's going to be needed it's going to be a big project but also it's 129 00:11:15,505 --> 00:11:17,245 going to be having a huge impact. 130 00:11:20,376 --> 00:11:27,776 On the documentation front, we've got Tiago Masato-Sueto. He's been with us 131 00:11:27,776 --> 00:11:29,976 now for a little over two years. 132 00:11:30,296 --> 00:11:34,396 He continues to write documentation and will be, of course, participating with 133 00:11:34,396 --> 00:11:37,896 Nicholas in the documentation changeover. 134 00:11:38,436 --> 00:11:43,956 Tiago writes all kinds of bits and pieces. He's improved the developer onboarding 135 00:11:43,956 --> 00:11:45,296 documentation a great deal. 136 00:11:45,556 --> 00:11:49,796 And he switches focus every couple of months. You can find him in the KDE development 137 00:11:49,796 --> 00:11:54,776 channels and just poke him there if you need something documentation specific. 138 00:11:57,176 --> 00:12:04,356 That wraps up our overview of contractors. So let's move on to talking about Academy itself. 139 00:12:05,096 --> 00:12:08,216 It's great to see all of you here. It's great. 140 00:12:08,536 --> 00:12:12,216 Well, we would have wanted everyone from the other room here as well, 141 00:12:12,336 --> 00:12:14,476 but, you know, take what you can get. 142 00:12:14,676 --> 00:12:18,996 It's great to have everyone here. A big thank you, especially to the Academy 143 00:12:18,996 --> 00:12:26,856 team, to Promo, to the organizers for getting the word out and making sure that 144 00:12:26,856 --> 00:12:29,256 people have a good time here. 145 00:12:31,116 --> 00:12:35,196 If you're in the audience, you will also be thinking about next year, 146 00:12:35,316 --> 00:12:40,636 and we'll soon be looking for a location for next year's Academy. 147 00:12:44,439 --> 00:12:48,319 I'm going to talk a bit about non-academy things, the sprints. 148 00:12:50,199 --> 00:12:54,959 We had a promo sprint in the fall of 2023 in Berlin. 149 00:12:55,839 --> 00:13:03,359 There was a goals mega sprint to talk about the wrapping up of the KDE goals that was in summer. 150 00:13:03,759 --> 00:13:09,579 And there's a reliable source of sprint information in the PIM team, 151 00:13:09,779 --> 00:13:11,639 which gets together in Toulouse every year. 152 00:13:12,919 --> 00:13:18,839 Nominally there's a list of uh of sprints that goes on on the community wiki um. 153 00:13:20,279 --> 00:13:24,819 It uh could use some more entries so please think about what you would like 154 00:13:24,819 --> 00:13:32,419 to sprint on next any group uh in kde can get together and uh sprint together 155 00:13:32,419 --> 00:13:37,159 let's talk about trade shows Yeah. 156 00:13:37,459 --> 00:13:42,679 So in past years, you've heard us talk very often about a return to travel. 157 00:13:42,799 --> 00:13:49,199 I think the past year is the first one where we can now say we can retire the term post pandemic. 158 00:13:50,019 --> 00:13:55,759 Many well-known events that KDE has for a long time attended are now back in 159 00:13:55,759 --> 00:13:57,539 physical form, some in their second year. 160 00:13:58,599 --> 00:14:04,059 And we've attended quite a lot of them thanks to many of our contributors who 161 00:14:04,059 --> 00:14:07,019 had the interest to Manabu's, 162 00:14:07,159 --> 00:14:11,499 thanks, of course, also to our promo contractors, and in particular the KD Network 163 00:14:11,499 --> 00:14:14,219 effort that is also supported by them. 164 00:14:14,879 --> 00:14:19,339 It's a good mix, both of well-known events and new things that we haven't been 165 00:14:19,339 --> 00:14:23,099 to many times or even attended for the first time. 166 00:14:23,299 --> 00:14:27,059 A particular highlight here perhaps is, and I think it's actually mentioned 167 00:14:27,059 --> 00:14:29,919 on the next slide as well, I think it's worth even mentioning twice, 168 00:14:29,919 --> 00:14:37,159 is that our India satellite event, conf.kde.in, is back for the first time in many years. 169 00:14:37,639 --> 00:14:40,139 We're very happy that this happened again. 170 00:14:42,859 --> 00:14:48,019 Right, so again, super happy about conf.kde.in, but of course also that we're 171 00:14:48,019 --> 00:14:54,119 back here at Academy, as Ade also said, and also that Academy Spain happened as well. 172 00:14:54,619 --> 00:14:56,519 Linux App Summit is still coming 173 00:14:56,519 --> 00:14:59,719 up this year. That is going to be another highlight in the calendar. 174 00:14:59,919 --> 00:15:04,279 And of course, this was also the year where we released Plasma 6 and we had 175 00:15:04,279 --> 00:15:08,859 many release parties all over the globe, including a very lovely one in Berlin 176 00:15:08,859 --> 00:15:11,639 that I attended along with Lydia and others. 177 00:15:11,959 --> 00:15:18,059 And we had a good time there and met many users. And that was, I think, very welcome. 178 00:15:18,299 --> 00:15:23,419 Usually we go to developer events. It's very nice to also meet some users who 179 00:15:23,419 --> 00:15:26,559 just enjoy using your software. So that was really great. 180 00:15:29,239 --> 00:15:35,679 Fundraising. So I mentioned we had a significant uptick across many of our donation channels. 181 00:15:36,519 --> 00:15:37,719 This is. 182 00:15:39,344 --> 00:15:42,904 Partially, especially as it concerns the supporting membership, 183 00:15:43,044 --> 00:15:46,424 because we finally retired CiviCRM. 184 00:15:46,604 --> 00:15:52,564 This is a software platform that we tried to use for many years. 185 00:15:53,944 --> 00:15:59,984 Somebody could write a book about it. We've burned every contractor that exists in that market. 186 00:16:00,264 --> 00:16:03,584 It never quite worked. We switched to DonorBox. 187 00:16:04,624 --> 00:16:07,784 This is certainly not free software, but it does work very well. 188 00:16:07,784 --> 00:16:09,844 UX turns out to make a difference. 189 00:16:11,044 --> 00:16:18,444 Reception by donors has been fantastic. So the great thing is that we did this 190 00:16:18,444 --> 00:16:20,044 in time for the Plasma 6 release, 191 00:16:20,264 --> 00:16:26,264 which of course was a big attention grabber and a good reason to run also fundraising campaigns. 192 00:16:27,024 --> 00:16:32,584 But it looks like the resulting supporting memberships are quite sticky. 193 00:16:33,064 --> 00:16:38,804 People are keeping their recurring plan going and they They keep donating, which is great. 194 00:16:39,524 --> 00:16:41,064 Patrons, again, no changes. 195 00:16:42,264 --> 00:16:48,224 Another income source that we have is grants, something that we've mentioned 196 00:16:48,224 --> 00:16:50,024 we want to do more of in the past. 197 00:16:50,444 --> 00:16:57,804 This year, we're very happy that Joseph and Nicole have been successful in getting 198 00:16:57,804 --> 00:17:00,044 a follow-up grant to our Blower Angle project. 199 00:17:00,184 --> 00:17:04,764 The new one is called Sustainable Software for Sustainable Hardware. 200 00:17:04,764 --> 00:17:10,944 And Billy continues on where the previous one left off. 201 00:17:11,084 --> 00:17:14,264 So it's fantastic that we have continuity there and we're very happy with that. 202 00:17:15,264 --> 00:17:22,864 We also supported through a contractor in Guglielm that project of getting more 203 00:17:22,864 --> 00:17:27,644 KDE applications into proprietary app stores as another income source. 204 00:17:28,404 --> 00:17:34,944 This project has been completed successfully. The first applications are now available. 205 00:17:35,860 --> 00:17:41,980 And it is now really up to our KDE application developers to start making more 206 00:17:41,980 --> 00:17:45,340 use of this infrastructure and start engaging with that audience. 207 00:17:45,520 --> 00:17:49,960 And then this in the future was also then a funding source that we expect to grow. 208 00:17:54,340 --> 00:17:59,520 And if you want to read an amazing report that our promo team has put together 209 00:17:59,520 --> 00:18:05,920 about all the activities of the ev then you can find that on the ev website, 210 00:18:07,220 --> 00:18:09,700 very well very worth reading, 211 00:18:12,720 --> 00:18:19,020 all right that brings us to individual projects funding as some of you might remember we've been 212 00:18:19,120 --> 00:18:22,100 putting uh quite some effort 213 00:18:22,100 --> 00:18:25,800 into figuring out okay how can we help individual projects more 214 00:18:25,800 --> 00:18:29,100 um in funding for 215 00:18:29,100 --> 00:18:32,180 specific uh initiatives for example around their projects 216 00:18:32,180 --> 00:18:35,240 um and where we are with this right now is 217 00:18:35,240 --> 00:18:38,560 that kid in life is the only uh project 218 00:18:38,560 --> 00:18:45,520 still that is a part of this um and we have uh gotten quite some money for this 219 00:18:45,520 --> 00:18:50,580 but we are still figuring out how to now actually spent that money together 220 00:18:50,580 --> 00:18:55,680 with KDE Live because that's what this money was fundraised for, right? 221 00:18:57,220 --> 00:19:02,300 And in general, if other projects are interested in exploring this more, 222 00:19:02,500 --> 00:19:05,440 we're open to adding more programs to this. 223 00:19:05,880 --> 00:19:09,400 Come talk to us and we can see if that's a fit at this point. 224 00:19:13,940 --> 00:19:19,160 Another major KDE topic is always the KDE goals. 225 00:19:19,540 --> 00:19:23,740 We just concluded a round of goals and voted on another one. 226 00:19:23,900 --> 00:19:27,000 Some of you may have been in the session just before lunch. 227 00:19:27,540 --> 00:19:30,980 A couple of us who were goals champions talked about our goals, 228 00:19:31,120 --> 00:19:36,200 wrapping everything up, and mentioned some of the things that were challenging for us. 229 00:19:37,120 --> 00:19:40,940 Some things worked a little bit better than others. And so that feedback has 230 00:19:40,940 --> 00:19:43,260 been taken into account for the latest round of goals. 231 00:19:43,400 --> 00:19:48,600 And as such, we're making a couple of changes to try to adapt to those pieces of feedback. 232 00:19:49,300 --> 00:19:54,440 We're going to try for each goal to be run by a team instead of individual champions. 233 00:19:54,980 --> 00:19:59,600 Hopefully this will reduce the amount of work on any one individual person and 234 00:19:59,600 --> 00:20:02,220 make it possible for people to have breaks and avoid burnout. 235 00:20:02,460 --> 00:20:05,360 We're going to be doing more aggressive outreach for the community, 236 00:20:05,680 --> 00:20:09,580 helping to get the word out for these goals, and we're also going to be, 237 00:20:09,640 --> 00:20:10,960 through our new goals coordinator, 238 00:20:11,480 --> 00:20:15,800 seeking external sources of funding in the form of relevant grants for the goals 239 00:20:15,800 --> 00:20:21,580 in the hope that these new monies will be able to be put towards actual work 240 00:20:21,580 --> 00:20:23,300 and development relevant to the goals. 241 00:20:28,218 --> 00:20:31,498 Uh, the goals were just one of the really cool things that happened. There were many others. 242 00:20:31,678 --> 00:20:35,938 Uh, some of us have put our highlights on this page here. Some of the things 243 00:20:35,938 --> 00:20:37,278 we're particularly proud of. 244 00:20:37,598 --> 00:20:41,978 Uh, one of the ones that personally I'm the most happy about is one of the things 245 00:20:41,978 --> 00:20:44,898 that I could just mention, which is we did an incredible fundraiser that was 246 00:20:44,898 --> 00:20:46,038 super duper crazy successful. 247 00:20:46,478 --> 00:20:50,478 We went from, I believe, 51 supporting members to like 750. 248 00:20:50,898 --> 00:20:54,738 It's a factor of like 13 is huge, huge, huge improvement. 249 00:20:55,678 --> 00:20:58,878 So it shows that there's a lot of low-hanging fruit there in terms of fundraising, 250 00:20:59,038 --> 00:21:01,818 and people are very willing to give to our organization. 251 00:21:02,398 --> 00:21:06,718 A lot of that came from Plasma 6, which there was a lot of release activity around. 252 00:21:06,898 --> 00:21:10,178 We released Plasma 6. It was a very successful major release. 253 00:21:10,278 --> 00:21:14,898 After nearly 10 years of Plasma 5, we moved to 6 in a largely drama-free way. 254 00:21:15,238 --> 00:21:20,198 We're about to be releasing Plasma 6.2 in a little over a month. 255 00:21:20,378 --> 00:21:23,218 And so far, the reaction to this has has been super duper positive. 256 00:21:23,798 --> 00:21:28,898 As I discussed when you voted on the new goals, three have been chosen. 257 00:21:29,238 --> 00:21:32,778 They're really great. I'm very happy about those new goals. I hope all of you 258 00:21:32,778 --> 00:21:35,998 are excited about them as well, because we're going to be hearing a lot about them. 259 00:21:36,258 --> 00:21:40,978 And finally, another highlight is that we got another KDE Eco Grant. 260 00:21:41,098 --> 00:21:45,198 This now marks the second one we've got, which shows that our organization is 261 00:21:45,198 --> 00:21:47,378 really building trust in that space. 262 00:21:47,658 --> 00:21:51,578 And as Cornelius mentioned in the previous session, we're now becoming known 263 00:21:51,578 --> 00:21:57,758 as an organization that's active and trustworthy in the eco and sustainability spaces. 264 00:21:59,018 --> 00:22:04,298 Moving on, here are some of the things that we talked about last year that we 265 00:22:04,298 --> 00:22:05,398 said that we were going to do. 266 00:22:05,498 --> 00:22:09,098 We want to do better support the KDE Goals program. 267 00:22:09,858 --> 00:22:13,518 As I mentioned just a moment ago, we have revamped the program. 268 00:22:13,658 --> 00:22:17,998 We've decided to change around a few things, hopefully to offer more support to Goals champions. 269 00:22:19,038 --> 00:22:23,438 We have contracted with Fareed to take over the organization of the process, 270 00:22:23,658 --> 00:22:27,498 and he's doing great work to help support the new champions. 271 00:22:28,358 --> 00:22:32,518 So we have very high hopes for the Katie Eagles process moving forward. 272 00:22:33,378 --> 00:22:38,498 Then after that, we've got our new financial situation, which is something that 273 00:22:38,498 --> 00:22:40,798 was a little bit aspirational last year. 274 00:22:40,878 --> 00:22:45,458 We were hoping that DonorBox and this fundraising campaign would bear fruit, 275 00:22:45,578 --> 00:22:46,998 and it certainly has borne fruit. 276 00:22:46,998 --> 00:22:49,918 Our supporting member donations have 277 00:22:49,918 --> 00:22:53,318 increased from 2022 to 2023 in total 278 00:22:53,318 --> 00:22:56,418 by over 60,000 euros this is fantastic we're going 279 00:22:56,418 --> 00:23:02,418 to be putting this to good use to do more activities that are highly relevant 280 00:23:02,418 --> 00:23:08,038 to the community and finally as I could just mention we're in firmly post-pandemic 281 00:23:08,038 --> 00:23:12,718 territory we wanted to organize more events we are here for academy of course 282 00:23:12,718 --> 00:23:15,818 LAS is next month and I hope to see some of you there. 283 00:23:16,118 --> 00:23:18,238 I'm actually going to attend this year. 284 00:23:19,351 --> 00:23:22,831 Hiding from that one. So I want to see a bunch more of you as well. 285 00:23:23,071 --> 00:23:25,231 And then there are all of those other events that we mentioned, 286 00:23:25,411 --> 00:23:29,271 conferences and trade shows. So KDE is really showing up in a lot of places. 287 00:23:29,891 --> 00:23:34,591 Finally, over here, we have the Make a Living program, which is where we put 288 00:23:34,591 --> 00:23:37,651 all of this fundraised money to good use by employing people, 289 00:23:37,911 --> 00:23:42,331 largely existing members of the KDE community, but some outsiders who are brought 290 00:23:42,331 --> 00:23:43,511 in and then made insiders. 291 00:23:43,951 --> 00:23:46,071 And we definitely wanted to put 292 00:23:46,071 --> 00:23:49,571 that money towards that use so that we're reinvesting in our community. 293 00:23:49,911 --> 00:23:53,251 And then finally, the fifth thing was that we wanted to get our products closer 294 00:23:53,251 --> 00:23:55,551 to users. This is a work in progress. 295 00:23:55,831 --> 00:24:00,831 We discussed already making it more possible to acquire our apps in various 296 00:24:00,831 --> 00:24:04,291 app stores, which is where people tend to want to find them these days. 297 00:24:04,411 --> 00:24:09,611 There are also partnerships with hardware vendors and distro partnerships. 298 00:24:10,011 --> 00:24:14,051 And in general, We've been thinking a lot about the topic of how to make it 299 00:24:14,051 --> 00:24:17,931 more possible for KDE to have direct relationships with our users. 300 00:24:18,571 --> 00:24:23,431 It's been a very big topic in the recent past, and we expect that to be true going forward as well. 301 00:24:27,093 --> 00:24:34,433 Now for the next year, I wouldn't expect something like super deviating from what we did this year. 302 00:24:34,933 --> 00:24:38,673 But obviously it's an iteration, like we still need to support our new goals. 303 00:24:38,813 --> 00:24:42,633 They were announced today. They're amazing, but we need to work together, 304 00:24:42,753 --> 00:24:46,913 which means we need to work together as a community member, but also as an EV. 305 00:24:46,913 --> 00:24:52,593 Actually, something that was a reason for the goals to be, to exist in the first 306 00:24:52,593 --> 00:24:56,053 place was like, how does the EV and the EV board specifically, 307 00:24:56,493 --> 00:25:01,533 like know how to like spend money within the community and the goals is a clear way. 308 00:25:01,633 --> 00:25:07,333 Like we have a mandate there that it's something that we care from as a community 309 00:25:07,333 --> 00:25:09,093 and it should be actionable. 310 00:25:10,113 --> 00:25:13,233 The financial situation remains a topic. 311 00:25:13,493 --> 00:25:18,673 You will have seen that on the yearly report, we had some fancy red numbers. 312 00:25:18,853 --> 00:25:21,973 On the other hand, we have the increase in donations. 313 00:25:22,373 --> 00:25:25,293 This is something that we need to understand and navigate. 314 00:25:27,333 --> 00:25:34,073 We will go a little bit about that later today. And then also coming together, it remains important. 315 00:25:34,993 --> 00:25:37,833 Academy LAS should also happen next year. 316 00:25:38,513 --> 00:25:42,393 By the way, like we said, If you want to organize Academy or LIS, 317 00:25:42,653 --> 00:25:44,653 say so, and we'll help you. 318 00:25:44,713 --> 00:25:50,713 Also, Sprint, they have diminished considerably since pandemic correlation or 319 00:25:50,713 --> 00:25:52,373 causation. It has been clearly a thing. 320 00:25:54,053 --> 00:25:58,593 Some people who are newer in the community were telling me yesterday, 321 00:25:58,773 --> 00:26:03,853 we don't really understand why they're not happening. And I would have liked to go more of that. 322 00:26:04,033 --> 00:26:08,593 So if you think that this is a problem you've identified, reach out to us. 323 00:26:08,593 --> 00:26:13,913 Like we do have funds and actually if we think that you care we will also like push it more right. 324 00:26:16,093 --> 00:26:22,573 Um on make a living it continues to be a thing but uh making make a living thing 325 00:26:22,573 --> 00:26:23,993 also was considered like um, 326 00:26:25,617 --> 00:26:29,177 also a test and a start to like 327 00:26:29,177 --> 00:26:32,057 hire people to work on on the product and 328 00:26:32,057 --> 00:26:35,337 on on the community which is something that we hadn't done before and 329 00:26:35,337 --> 00:26:40,337 at the moment we're at the point that like this initial push for it uh is somewhat 330 00:26:40,337 --> 00:26:43,797 over we should start thinking we think which things work which things didn't 331 00:26:43,797 --> 00:26:49,777 and actually how do we establish that right like uh when how do we decide that 332 00:26:49,777 --> 00:26:53,057 to take on a new project, how do we decide to stop a project? 333 00:26:54,177 --> 00:26:58,357 These are things that need to be established so that also you can say, 334 00:26:58,497 --> 00:27:02,177 I would like to work on this or I would like to see this worked on. 335 00:27:02,677 --> 00:27:04,657 How do we do that properly? 336 00:27:06,917 --> 00:27:13,037 And on the same lines as Nate was discussing earlier, we brought down that getting 337 00:27:13,037 --> 00:27:18,257 closer to our users into these two big topics on the when it comes to hardware. 338 00:27:18,257 --> 00:27:22,237 I think that we need to like have this direct communication with the community 339 00:27:22,237 --> 00:27:29,317 to see how that story needs to look like at the moment as KDV and KDV board. 340 00:27:29,417 --> 00:27:33,017 I mean, we're obviously like very related to the community and we know the answers, 341 00:27:33,157 --> 00:27:34,817 right? But I think that we need to polish a lot more. 342 00:27:34,997 --> 00:27:38,097 How do we, KD, want to be present in this kind of deployment? 343 00:27:38,097 --> 00:27:43,737 And probably right now is a very good moment to have this kind of consideration, 344 00:27:44,197 --> 00:27:52,217 both because, like, well, our ecosystem at the technical level is at a moving moment. 345 00:27:52,397 --> 00:27:57,957 And but also because, like, at the moment, we have all of the contacts and we 346 00:27:57,957 --> 00:28:00,897 need to make sure that we are also delivering to them something that we're proud of. 347 00:28:00,897 --> 00:28:08,557 And when it comes to the app stores, we have the one on Windows and Android. 348 00:28:09,757 --> 00:28:14,717 I think that we should do more. We should see that everything is in place to make it happen. 349 00:28:14,897 --> 00:28:19,077 But we do think that it would be interesting if this could become one of the 350 00:28:19,077 --> 00:28:25,137 sources of income and of engagement of people from outside of our direct community. 351 00:28:25,257 --> 00:28:27,597 Like we're very close to the Linux community itself. 352 00:28:28,678 --> 00:28:33,758 There's a lot more world than that. And I think that, or we think that if we 353 00:28:33,758 --> 00:28:35,798 can be part of it, it would be very interesting. 354 00:28:35,958 --> 00:28:40,498 And furthermore, when it comes to Linux itself, we have been working with Flathub 355 00:28:40,498 --> 00:28:44,158 to see if payments can be a thing there and also be part of this story. 356 00:28:44,318 --> 00:28:49,218 It hasn't happened yet, but we're hoping that it will be a thing soon. 357 00:28:50,278 --> 00:28:53,258 So these are the key topics that we are suggesting for next year. 358 00:28:54,278 --> 00:28:59,158 We'll do our best to make sure that they happen. happen, reach out to us about 359 00:28:59,158 --> 00:29:03,118 any topics that you might want to talk to us about. 360 00:29:03,298 --> 00:29:12,458 We're all very nice people, or at least most of us, and find us on the hallways, on the chat rooms. 361 00:29:12,978 --> 00:29:17,138 We will have a buff, like we said earlier on Tuesday. 362 00:29:17,418 --> 00:29:21,758 So come over and we talk about any EV stuff. 363 00:29:22,018 --> 00:29:26,418 And maybe now we have some time for questions. I don't know. Do we have time? 364 00:29:29,318 --> 00:29:30,758 10 minutes. 365 00:29:34,098 --> 00:29:39,298 Yeah let's do questions does anyone want to say something. 366 00:29:42,978 --> 00:29:45,798 Please raise your question in the form of a question, 367 00:29:48,478 --> 00:29:57,738 don't tell me what to do so no like we had now some successful grant processes 368 00:29:57,738 --> 00:30:00,918 and I recall that in years past it wasn't the case. 369 00:30:01,098 --> 00:30:04,838 Did we collect learnings from that for the future? 370 00:30:10,218 --> 00:30:16,378 I think that the main learning I've had from the grant processes that grants themselves 371 00:30:16,558 --> 00:30:20,118 are a lot of work and we need 372 00:30:20,118 --> 00:30:23,278 to be very convinced for them to pay off uh but 373 00:30:23,278 --> 00:30:26,318 they do and when we are convinced and 374 00:30:26,318 --> 00:30:29,778 when it works uh like we're happy but 375 00:30:29,778 --> 00:30:33,198 when we also try to do them how fast then everybody 376 00:30:33,198 --> 00:30:37,478 gets frustrated and it's a waste of time so like 377 00:30:37,478 --> 00:30:40,258 saying as blanket we should be doing 378 00:30:40,258 --> 00:30:43,178 more grants is something that we should be aware very off 379 00:30:43,178 --> 00:30:46,518 but it's obviously a good opportunity for for ktv 380 00:30:46,518 --> 00:30:49,978 and for katie for evs in general i imagine to 381 00:30:49,978 --> 00:30:55,218 to do these kind of things because that can be a good way to fund what needs 382 00:30:55,218 --> 00:31:04,458 to happen and i think um one lesson that i learned about the grants process 383 00:31:04,458 --> 00:31:08,078 which in hindsight is maybe obvious is that um. 384 00:31:10,527 --> 00:31:15,767 Grants are not a way to earn money that you put into your coffers, right? 385 00:31:16,807 --> 00:31:20,987 Ideally, they break even. You get money for a certain purpose and you follow 386 00:31:20,987 --> 00:31:21,987 through on that purpose. 387 00:31:22,707 --> 00:31:29,047 That means that for a grant pitch to be successful and for the project to run 388 00:31:29,047 --> 00:31:33,347 successfully, as a community, we need to be really convinced we want to do that. 389 00:31:33,407 --> 00:31:34,487 The support has to be there. 390 00:31:34,587 --> 00:31:40,467 The people executing on the work, they have to be there. or we have to be able to contract them. 391 00:31:40,767 --> 00:31:46,987 So KDE Eco, I think, is a fantastic success story that's really a feather in 392 00:31:46,987 --> 00:31:49,527 our crown, right? It's something that otherwise we wouldn't have done. 393 00:31:50,227 --> 00:31:54,287 But it's also something that we've invested into. So if you just look at the 394 00:31:54,287 --> 00:31:58,047 financial numbers, we've put in a little bit more money than we've gotten out, 395 00:31:58,167 --> 00:32:00,747 especially because we had the gap between the two grants, right? 396 00:32:00,927 --> 00:32:05,547 And as long as we're totally convinced that it's worth doing and fits to our 397 00:32:05,547 --> 00:32:08,407 mission, then that makes perfect sense. 398 00:32:09,487 --> 00:32:15,587 So I think the grant proposals, they fail when we strain to apply for a grant, 399 00:32:15,667 --> 00:32:22,107 but there's no true community activity or interest sort of backing that, then it's bound to fail. 400 00:32:22,227 --> 00:32:28,407 But if there is enthusiasm and opportunity and they come together plus enough 401 00:32:28,407 --> 00:32:30,647 time, then it can work out really well. 402 00:32:32,432 --> 00:32:36,572 Yeah. And I would add to it, honestly, it's not just enthusiasm, right? 403 00:32:36,672 --> 00:32:40,972 For the first grant, Cornelius put in a ton of time. For the second grant, 404 00:32:41,212 --> 00:32:42,592 Joseph did the same thing. 405 00:32:42,752 --> 00:32:48,472 Like without their work, we would not have these grants because it requires 406 00:32:48,472 --> 00:32:52,512 so much time and effort that the board cannot do this. 407 00:32:52,512 --> 00:32:55,732 And um in the in 408 00:32:55,732 --> 00:33:03,192 both of these grants um we also specifically added um personnel resources to 409 00:33:03,192 --> 00:33:08,772 handle the administrative part of that uh still some of it ends up on pinterest 410 00:33:08,772 --> 00:33:14,132 desks and so on so that is a lot of work and enthusiasm isn't enough to make that, 411 00:33:15,452 --> 00:33:20,612 magically happen right like it takes like work and i'm very grateful to both 412 00:33:20,612 --> 00:33:23,912 corneas and and Joseph, that they have put in that network. 413 00:33:26,672 --> 00:33:27,872 More questions. 414 00:33:33,712 --> 00:33:34,492 I'm sorry. 415 00:33:41,592 --> 00:33:49,852 Yeah, yeah, yeah. You mentioned there's one app on the App Store that is paid, 416 00:33:50,032 --> 00:33:52,432 that is available for payment, 417 00:33:52,692 --> 00:33:57,812 which one it is, and could we make more available? Do you have any candidates? 418 00:34:03,012 --> 00:34:08,112 So I recently asked Lej the very same question, and now I can relate his answer. 419 00:34:08,252 --> 00:34:12,552 So I understand, right, the pilot app on the store that you can pay for is NeoChat. 420 00:34:15,376 --> 00:34:18,836 Yeah. The rest of it, you're much more qualified to answer than I am. 421 00:34:18,936 --> 00:34:22,556 So I think the second part was how do we get more apps on there as an app developer? 422 00:34:23,136 --> 00:34:26,756 So we've been having the conversation about which are the others. 423 00:34:26,976 --> 00:34:32,296 And obviously, one of our problems is that we're all using Linux, 424 00:34:32,376 --> 00:34:38,496 like the population of Windows users in our community is fairly scarce. 425 00:34:39,056 --> 00:34:43,456 And even like Like when people use Linux at work and stuff, when they do kiddie 426 00:34:43,456 --> 00:34:45,496 things, they want to do Linux things. 427 00:34:46,456 --> 00:34:50,616 But we do have some applications with good adoption. Ocular comes to mind. 428 00:34:50,736 --> 00:34:53,016 Like it has several thousand users. 429 00:34:56,016 --> 00:35:00,096 Like we can have this discussion about like, do we put it, do we put it now? 430 00:35:00,256 --> 00:35:04,716 Do we want to like do any extra assessment of whether it's a good idea? 431 00:35:05,796 --> 00:35:09,076 Like some of the people of the community has also mentioned, 432 00:35:09,236 --> 00:35:12,896 like, why don't you just put them all at, like, five euros and see what happens? 433 00:35:13,096 --> 00:35:18,716 Something we could do. Like, in practice, I think that if KDE, 434 00:35:18,816 --> 00:35:24,396 as a free software organization, puts effort on Windows, needs to be paid for in the end. 435 00:35:24,496 --> 00:35:28,836 And also, like, if you use Windows and really don't want to pay an EV for the 436 00:35:28,836 --> 00:35:32,016 software you're getting, you can always get installables elsewhere. 437 00:35:32,936 --> 00:35:36,396 But it's still a good idea that we do the effort. 438 00:35:36,396 --> 00:35:41,036 But I would really prefer if it's the developers, the maintainers of each project 439 00:35:41,036 --> 00:35:48,476 that says, I'm going to take on this platform and make sure that it's working reasonably well. 440 00:35:48,776 --> 00:35:57,396 Because it's not really in our realm of expertise or even the kind of things 441 00:35:57,396 --> 00:36:02,496 we can do to figure out what happens in color paint on Android, right? 442 00:36:02,576 --> 00:36:07,836 Like, sure. So we cannot go all blanket on every platform. 443 00:36:08,656 --> 00:36:15,396 We could consider sponsoring more work, much like Ingo did, if this was something that is necessary. 444 00:36:15,736 --> 00:36:20,616 But this is something that we need to discuss and sit down and figure out properly how to do. 445 00:36:22,096 --> 00:36:26,496 If someone wants their app to be on the Windows Store, what do they do? 446 00:36:28,356 --> 00:36:31,156 Well they they they can reach out to 447 00:36:31,156 --> 00:36:34,096 us they can reach out to uh the different people 448 00:36:34,096 --> 00:36:37,356 who are maintaining the different platforms like for 449 00:36:37,356 --> 00:36:40,676 example on android android is another one that we could explore more that way 450 00:36:40,676 --> 00:36:46,316 like you don't even need to ask me right uh but reach out to me and we will 451 00:36:46,316 --> 00:36:54,596 figure it out or whatever else that's gonna be fine yeah two minutes you have one last 452 00:36:54,816 --> 00:36:57,396 question or two very quick ones. 453 00:37:02,194 --> 00:37:07,494 And you mentioned the new supporting members, which is fantastic that there are so many now. 454 00:37:08,034 --> 00:37:12,694 My question is, the supporting members are actually members of KDEV. 455 00:37:13,034 --> 00:37:19,094 We don't want to treat them as a recurring source of money, but actually as part of the community. 456 00:37:19,354 --> 00:37:21,914 Have you thought about how to engage them? 457 00:37:22,394 --> 00:37:26,114 I mean, we probably would have room for 700 people here, but it would have been 458 00:37:26,114 --> 00:37:27,994 nice to have at least some of them more here. 459 00:37:27,994 --> 00:37:35,874 Yeah, so they get quarterly newsletters, thanks to Annika preparing them, 460 00:37:35,974 --> 00:37:39,434 with news about what's happening around KDE. 461 00:37:40,774 --> 00:37:44,834 By the way, we need some help with that. If people are good with newsletter 462 00:37:44,834 --> 00:37:47,834 setups, please come talk to me. 463 00:37:47,834 --> 00:38:00,234 And they are invited to the AGM if people have more ideas how we can engage them even more please, 464 00:38:01,514 --> 00:38:03,574 talk to me and we can figure it out, 465 00:38:05,334 --> 00:38:08,714 and there was another question nine, 466 00:38:13,394 --> 00:38:14,274 here Here. 467 00:38:21,674 --> 00:38:24,694 If there's not enough time for an answer, that's a pity. 468 00:38:24,874 --> 00:38:31,734 But you mentioned several projects that were funded where the KDE EV was active. 469 00:38:31,974 --> 00:38:38,354 But as I will show in the talk tomorrow, there are also several projects that 470 00:38:38,354 --> 00:38:43,174 were funded on KDE, which were developers themselves asking for funding. 471 00:38:43,174 --> 00:38:44,194 And I think that's something. 472 00:38:52,334 --> 00:38:56,554 So I think maybe the EV could also encourage people to, you know, 473 00:38:56,574 --> 00:38:59,274 just you can also apply yourself. 474 00:38:59,574 --> 00:39:03,134 And then the EV doesn't have the burden of employing people. 475 00:39:04,954 --> 00:39:08,554 Depends on the project, of course. What's the best choice? We totally recommend 476 00:39:08,554 --> 00:39:12,154 everybody to go talk to yours and do their KD project with them. 477 00:39:12,234 --> 00:39:12,914 It's going to be amazing. 478 00:39:13,174 --> 00:39:16,574 Obviously, we cannot report on things that hasn't been done by the KDP because 479 00:39:16,574 --> 00:39:18,494 this is the KDP board report. 480 00:39:19,294 --> 00:39:23,234 Thanks, everyone, for joining. Yeah, thanks for coming, guys. 481 00:39:26,874 --> 00:39:33,854 So coming up next in this room in about five minutes is a report of the working groups. I'm going to...