Developers KDE announced integration of a donation request function into the KDE Plasma operating system. This feature will be implemented in the form of a pop-up notification, displayed only once a year in December. The aim is to reach users who may not regularly visit KDE websites or social media platforms where donation requests are typically posted. This change has been accepted in preparation for the upcoming release of KDE Plasma 6.2.
A new module has been added to KDED (KDE Daemon) to handle the display of donation notifications. Distributors will have the option to disable this module if desired. Users can also opt out of seeing donation requests by accessing the notification control page in the settings or by clicking on a settings button within the notification itself.
The decision to incorporate donation requests into KDE Plasma was influenced by the successful implementation of similar strategies in projects like Thunderbird and Wikipedia, which led to a significant increase in donations. The additional funds generated from this initiative will be used to support key developers, allowing them to dedicate more time to their work on KDE projects without the need for additional employment.