A recent change was proposed last month to implement an on-by-default KDED (KDE Daemon) module that will gently ask you to donate to KDE as a pop-up on your notification system inside the KDE Plasma desktop, planned for version 6.2.
As per the merge request cited above and this blog post from developer Nate Graham regarding the situation, we can find the following rationale behind this implementation: KDE usually ask through various social media posts, official channels and yearly fundraisers and blog posts which Graham noted you "may get the impression that we’re always begging for cash". However, if you're not a follower of those and just an average KDE (Plasma) user, you might never know that KDE (The Foundation) has these donations requests constantly being asked, or never know it could be in need of funding.
Pictured - The donation request in KDE Plasma, although the button has now been changed to a less pushy "Donate" instead of "Donate Now".
With that in mind and the fact that other organizations already do this on a yearly basis (Thunderbird and Wikimedia for example), KDE decided to implement a KDED module that will ask for donations only once a year in Plasma 6.2+. While it may look intrusive, this is completely configurable for those which are packaging KDE so, it's up to each Linux distribution or users to disable it using the normal means of disabling KDED modules.
Something else to keep in mind is that they want to keep expanding too, they want to offer full-time employment to more people and hire more. On top of that, and quite exciting sounding, is that Graham noted in the blog post they eventually want to "fund the creation of a next-generation KDE OS we can offer directly to institutions looking to switch to Linux, and a hardware certification program to go along with it". Including (jokingly) they want to "take over the world" and get more distributions to use KDE Plasma by default.
Editor's opinion: I think it is fair for KDE to expose that they need funding and asking that from inside the UI would not hurt for a software that delivered so much for free (as in freedom and as in "gratis"). It is not cluttered, and does not seem to break anyone's workflow.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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Hmm, as much as asking for donations is perfectly fine and good (I'd consider a distro removing such a benign request to be very rude, almost hostile)... I don't think a system notification is the right place for it. I'd rather have it all the time in the login screen than having it pop up as a notification, even once per year. Having a static donate button somewhere in the settings would be better than a daemon to show a scheduled ad.
Maybe it is because of trauma about so much stuff using "notifications" to advertise, but I think that is a functional part of the system that should not be used for developer communication with users (and neither should command line outputs for your package manager, wtf Canonical). The same reasons that make it more effective than using proper communication channels are the reasons why it is bad: it is intruding on something users pay attention to because it is meant for other things. It is using privileged access to the system to reach users in a channel they don't expect. If someone deliberately chose to not engage on social media, e-mail and your website, should you really force an engagement? (An always-on notice/button feels ok because it isn't trying to grab your attention, it is just there in case you want)
I'm not saying this is extremely bad or anything; Ubuntu has done worse, it is the status quo for commercial proprietary software. And again I consider requests for donations to be good, important enough to merit special considerations. It is just that this particular way irks me, even coming from a project I support, and I'd prefer a request that I wouldn't feel the need to disable.
Maybe it is because of trauma about so much stuff using "notifications" to advertise, but I think that is a functional part of the system that should not be used for developer communication with users (and neither should command line outputs for your package manager, wtf Canonical). The same reasons that make it more effective than using proper communication channels are the reasons why it is bad: it is intruding on something users pay attention to because it is meant for other things. It is using privileged access to the system to reach users in a channel they don't expect. If someone deliberately chose to not engage on social media, e-mail and your website, should you really force an engagement? (An always-on notice/button feels ok because it isn't trying to grab your attention, it is just there in case you want)
I'm not saying this is extremely bad or anything; Ubuntu has done worse, it is the status quo for commercial proprietary software. And again I consider requests for donations to be good, important enough to merit special considerations. It is just that this particular way irks me, even coming from a project I support, and I'd prefer a request that I wouldn't feel the need to disable.
7 Likes, Who?
Quoting: pbI had a long break from KDE after they took a bad (for me) direction with KDE4. But last year, on the new computer, I decided to go wayland and I switched to kde, since xfce didn't have a wayland version. All was fine in the beginning but after some update (probably) the computer started randomly freezing. Like, I browse the web and bam, everything is frozen, hard reset needed. Or I leave the comp on, go eat or whatever, come back and it's frozen. Or I put it to sleep and can't wake it up etc. I suspected faulty hardware (ran memory tests etc.) and various programs (turned them off on boot etc.) but after a while I started to direct my suspicion towards KDE. So eventually I gathered some courage and time, and I installed Hyprland. It was a few months ago and not a single freeze since then, heh. And I actually love my new DE, everything configured to my taste (because by me, hehe).
TL;DR If you're experiencing random system freezes, it might be KDE.
Sounds like you Installed plasma 6 right after release.. it had some bugs that have since been fixed.. the freezing I pretty sure I experienced also and it was due to it constantly writing to a file for effects cache or something. since that was fixed I have not seen any new freezes. never install a .0 release and not expect any bugs
3 Likes, Who?
Mountain Man Aug 29
Quoting: pbI had a long break from KDE after they took a bad (for me) direction with KDE4. But last year, on the new computer, I decided to go wayland and I switched to kde, since xfce didn't have a wayland version. All was fine in the beginning but after some update (probably) the computer started randomly freezing. Like, I browse the web and bam, everything is frozen, hard reset needed. Or I leave the comp on, go eat or whatever, come back and it's frozen. Or I put it to sleep and can't wake it up etc. I suspected faulty hardware (ran memory tests etc.) and various programs (turned them off on boot etc.) but after a while I started to direct my suspicion towards KDE. So eventually I gathered some courage and time, and I installed Hyprland. It was a few months ago and not a single freeze since then, heh. And I actually love my new DE, everything configured to my taste (because by me, hehe).On the flip side, I've been using KDE for over 20 years and can't recall having a single significant problem with it. I've dabbled with other desktop environments over the years, but I've always come back to KDE.
TL;DR If you're experiencing random system freezes, it might be KDE.
4 Likes, Who?
Schattenspiegel Aug 29
Quoting: eldakingHmm, as much as asking for donations is perfectly fine and good (I'd consider a distro removing such a benign request to be very rude, almost hostile)... I don't think a system notification is the right place for it. I'd rather have it all the time in the login screen than having it pop up as a notification, even once per year. Having a static donate button somewhere in the settings would be better than a daemon to show a scheduled ad.Agreed, login screen all year would be fine - they could even offer some alternative styles as customization options as a fun intractable gimmick, but popups however sparse ...make me... not be in a good mood. Which might not be the best time to ask for a well deserved donation.
1 Likes, Who?
Quoting: pbSo eventually I gathered some courage and time, and I installed Hyprland.
I've been using ion3/notion for the last ... 18+ years(?) ... but I recently came across https://github.com/leukipp/cortile and now you mention https://hyprland.org - I think the universe is trying to tell me something.
I'll take a look at these two this weekend, thanks for mentioning Hyprland.
Last edited by torkus on 29 August 2024 at 11:24 pm UTC
1 Likes, Who?
Quoting: eldakingHmm, as much as asking for donations is perfectly fine and good (I'd consider a distro removing such a benign request to be very rude, almost hostile)... I don't think a system notification is the right place for it. I'd rather have it all the time in the login screen than having it pop up as a notification, even once per year. Having a static donate button somewhere in the settings would be better than a daemon to show a scheduled ad.
Maybe it is because of trauma about so much stuff using "notifications" to advertise, but I think that is a functional part of the system that should not be used for developer communication with users (and neither should command line outputs for your package manager, wtf Canonical). The same reasons that make it more effective than using proper communication channels are the reasons why it is bad: it is intruding on something users pay attention to because it is meant for other things. It is using privileged access to the system to reach users in a channel they don't expect. If someone deliberately chose to not engage on social media, e-mail and your website, should you really force an engagement? (An always-on notice/button feels ok because it isn't trying to grab your attention, it is just there in case you want)
You're right on the money, the notificiation tab should be reserved to stuff I actually care about i.e: emails, app notifications etc, and anything other than that no matter the intention is not acceptable for me. I mean, the image in the article with the "please donate" alert is giving me major Windows "please upgrade to 11" / "use OneDrive" / "try Recall AI" whiplash, I do not like this idea one bit.
I'll reiterate my point in my first comment; KDE already mentions donations in the welcome screen for every new major version, at least it does on Fedora. I got one when I upgraded to Plasma 6, and another one in 6.1, I believe this is a much better system that's already set in place, and since major Plasma versions happen more than once a year, it's a better system if you want to give out reminders more frequently. Planting it in the user notifications tab is a poor choice in my opinion.
Last edited by Pyrate on 29 August 2024 at 11:47 pm UTC
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benjamimgois Aug 29
Just seeing this popup image trigered me the thought that i have never donated to kde, so i just did it. It works.
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I think a donation message asking for money for a desktop environment that is objectively better than Windows Explorer (and subjectively better than a lot of linux DEs) is totally 100% fair, I don't see this as anywhere near the the same thing as when Microsoft symbolic links my directories to OneDrive without my consent and then says
"hey, buy OneDrive, your storage is running low"
"But I don't use onedrive"
"Yes you do, look"
"Oh, what, fuck you microsoft! Now I have to get all this stuff to local storage and unlink those directories before I tell you to fuck off."
Now, if KDE changed something around to dark pattern me into donating the way Onedrive does this, this would be a different story. But it's not doing that, so there's no issue here.
"hey, buy OneDrive, your storage is running low"
"But I don't use onedrive"
"Yes you do, look"
"Oh, what, fuck you microsoft! Now I have to get all this stuff to local storage and unlink those directories before I tell you to fuck off."
Now, if KDE changed something around to dark pattern me into donating the way Onedrive does this, this would be a different story. But it's not doing that, so there's no issue here.
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Quoting: tfkI'm already donating yearly. I run KDE on various devices now. Even my parents are using it. So its only fair that I make a contribution.
I give every year as well. I left Linux Mint & went to KDE Neon on it's initial release and never looked back. I couldn't imagine ever using a different DE. I'd like the ability to just donate monthly (say $5 or $10) instead of the 1-time donos, although I suppose I could set that up on my own via PayPal or similar.
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