at the conference in Barcelona KDE Akademy 2022 examined the plan for developing branches KDE 6. The release of the KDE Plasma 5.27 desktop will be the last in the KDE 5 series and after it will begin to form the KDE 6 branch. The key change in the new branch will be the transition to QT 6 and the delivery of the updated basic set of libraries and the KDE Frameworks 6, components, forming software glass KDE.
At the end of December, it is planned to freeze the KDE Frameworks 5 branch from making new capabilities and proceed to form the release of KDE Frameworks 6. In addition to adaptation for working on top of QT 6 in KDE Frameworks 6, a large API processing is also planned, including the possibility of a new branch Review some concepts and offer significant changes that violate reverse compatibility. Among the plans, the development of a new API is mentioned to work with notifications
(Knotifications), Simplification of the use of libraries in environments without widgets (minimizing dependence on widgets), processing API KDECLARATIVE, Review of the separation of classes of API and Runtime services to reduce the number of dependencies using API.
As for the KDE Plasma 6.0 desktop, they plan to pay the main attention in preparing this issue and increase stability. The release of KDE Plasma 6 is expected about a year later – after 4 months in February, the release of KDE Plasma 5.27 will be published, after which the summer release (5.28) will be missed in the fall of 2023 instead of release 5.29 will be formed by KDE Plasma 6.0.
In the current form, out of 588 KDE projects, the ability to assemble with QT 6 so far implemented only in 282 projects. Among the components that have not yet been supported by QT 6-Kwin, Plasma-Desktop, Plasma-Mobile, Akonadi, Elisa, Kaddressbook, Kdepim, Kdevelop, Kio, Kmail, Krita, Mauikit and Okular. It is noted that porting Kwin is already close to completion and the appearance of assembly support with QT 6 in it is expected in the coming days.