From kde-community Sat Aug 11 10:34:48 2018 From: Valorie Zimmerman Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2018 10:34:48 +0000 To: kde-community Subject: Improving our integration with KDE application teams, and supporting companies Message-Id: X-MARC-Message: https://marc.info/?l=kde-community&m=153398372216982 Hello folks, I've recently spent a week with Boud and Irina Rempt at their invitation. I hope that this sort of generous hospitality becomes the norm in our our KDE family. While there, we had many conversations about the past, present and future of KDE. I was surprised to learn that during the life of KO, Boud's previous company with Inga Wallin and now with his small company which supports Krita, he encountered quite a bit of opposition *in the KDE community*! I've long been puzzled why KDE applications seem to be relegated to the "second circle" of KDE, and companies supporting KDE software even further out. Not just puzzled, but somewhat discouraged, to be honest. When I consider the future of a healthy KDE, I see many small companies popping up, offering commercial support and specialized applications to users. Far too often I see our great young programmers work within KDE for a few years, but when they find a job "outside" then pair up and perhaps have children, they are only involved tangentially. In a healthy ecosystem, there would numerous KDE affiliated companies competing to hire them, and they would stay involved as long as they wanted, while supporting themselves. Am I the only one who thinks of our future in this way? I think it's great that we are improving ties with "outside" companies and groups, and fully support that. But *inside* KDE we should be starting companies and foundations who can collect donations to support KDE programmers. I would like to know the thoughts of others and how we can best encourage this. Please let's talk about this during Akademy. Valorie -- http://about.me/valoriez