The KDE Project announced today that The Sovereign Tech Fund will invest over €1 million EUR (~ $1,5 million USD) in the KDE e.V. non-profit organization over the next few years.
The Sovereign Tech Agency is well known for funding open source projects through its Sovereign Tech Fund program, and it provided over €24.6 million EUR in funding to support more than 60 open source projects globally, including big names like Python Software Foundation, FreeBSD, Eclipse Foundation, OpenStreetMap Foundation (OSMF), and Drupal.
During 2026 and 2027, KDE will receive a total of €1,285,200 EUR (~ 1,512,680 USD) from The Sovereign Tech Fund for improving the KDE Plasma desktop environment, KDE Linux’s QA infrastructure, data backup and restore systems, network shares experience, and KDE PIM’s desktop integration with Flatpak-based delivery.
KDE will also use the funds to improve KDE Plasma’s recovery mechanisms, implement factory reset functionality for KDE Linux, improve the security infrastructure for organizational usage across the KDE Plasma desktop, and strengthen configuration management as a core desktop infrastructure.
On top of that, KDE will use the funds to build KDE PIM’s QA infrastructure and an end-to-end testing infrastructure for IMAP4 and WebDAV, along with support for IMAP4rev2, support for WebDAV push notifications, and standardized account configuration. The funds will not be used for any other purposes.
“We have long invested in desktop technologies for a reason: they are the primary way people access and use digital services in everyday life,” says Fiona Krakenbürger, Technical Director at the Sovereign Tech Agency. “Strengthening KDE’s testing infrastructure, security architecture, and communication frameworks is how we invest in the resilience and reliability of the core digital infrastructure that modern society depends on.”
The ultimate goal is for KDE to use these funds to push its open-source and free software products to the next level, providing individuals, businesses, and public administration with the opportunity to move away from expensive and insecure software and regain their privacy, security, and control over their digital sovereignty.
KDE is turning 30 years old this October!
Source: https://9to5linux.com/kde-receives-over-e1m-from-sovereign-tech-fund-for-software-development