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The KDE Project announced today the Qt 5 Patch Collection as a new initiative to continue supporting and maintaining a stable Qt 5 branch for their KDE Gears and Frameworks software stacks.
As you may be aware of, Qt 6 arrived at the end of 2020 as the next-generation Qt application framework with new technologies and features for building more modern Qt software, and now the KDE Project aims to adopt it for their popular KDE Plasma desktop environment and apps.
At the moment, all KDE apps and the KDE Plasma desktop environment rely on the current Qt 5 technologies, but the KDE Project wants to start migrating them to Qt 6 in an attempt to provide users with new functionality.
Therefore, until the Qt 6 adoption is complete, the KDE Project will maintain a curated set of patches for the Qt 5.15 series with security and functional fixes, ensuring the overall stability and reliability of all their KDE software.
“To transition to great future technologies like Qt 6 we need to have the peace of mind that our current users are catered for. With this patch collection we gain the flexibility we need to stabilize the status quo. This way we can continue collaborating with Qt and deliver great solutions for our users,” said Aleix Pol, KDE e.V. President.
The next generation of KDE’s software stacks, KDE Frameworks 6 and KDE Gear (formerly KDE Applications), will arrive later this year based on the Qt 6 open-source and cross-platform application framework.
More details about the Qt 5 Patch Collection initiative can be found here, and the KDE Project is inviting everyone to participate in the KDE Frameworks 6 development, which is based on Qt 6.
My hope is that, when the Qt 6 adoption is complete, the KDE Project will also release the next-generation of their modern desktop environment, KDE Plasma 6.
Last updated 3 years ago
