As KDE Turns 30, Contributors and Commits are Going Strong
"In a few weeks, KDE will turn 30 years old," writes core contributor Kevin Ottens, celebrating with some special KDE community data analytics (including a 30-year graph of the number of contributors): It peaks around 180 on average (and sometimes reaches towards around 200 people) then shrinks again hitting bottom around 110 persons on average in 2017... Since then, we had two major events…
In a few weeks, KDE will celebrate its 30th anniversary, according to core contributor Kevin Ottens. A special KDE community data analysis reveals that the contributor count reaches an average of 180, occasionally peaking at 200, but typically dips to around 110 in 2017. However, since then, there have been two significant events.
The first was the establishment of KDE Goals in 2018, with onboarding new contributors being a top priority. The second was the transition to GitLab, which was completed early in the second quarter of 2020. Currently, the team size is approximately 140 people on average, nearing the all-time high of 2010 but not quite there yet.
Despite a smaller contributor count, the commit count has reached an all-time high in 2023, surpassing any other week since the project's inception. As the trends point upwards, 2026 is expected to be a fantastic year for KDE. The Plasma desktop, too, has shown improvement since 2010, stabilizing quickly and maintaining a nearly identical team size.
The transition to GitLab likely contributed to its team size nearly doubling during that period. With KDE demonstrating strong community health and numerous successful products, the author expresses gratitude to all contributors over the past 30 years.
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