Plasma Desktop Will Soon Ask for Donations
The next iteration of Plasma has reached the soft feature freeze for the 6.2 version and includes a feature that could be divisive.
Plasma desktop is one of the more popular Linux desktops on the market. Like most Linux desktops, Plasma is free, which means the development team relies on donations. The problem with that has been the challenge of knowing where to donate.
The Plasma development team has a solution in the form of a yearly pop-up reminder to encourage users to donate. This new feature doesn't mean you have to donate to the cause; it just means it'll be easier to do so.
According to Plasma developer, Nate Graham, the team asks for donations to cover things like web and server hosting, organizing and hosting larger Akademy events, funding more frequent and larger sprints, and paying people to work on things not focused on by the volunteer community.
Nate states, "If you’re plugged into KDE social media, you probably see a lot of requests for donations. I end every one of my 'This Week in KDE' posts with one, and many others do for their own blog posts as well. KDE’s official social media channels blast it out constantly, and we also do yearly fundraisers that are widely promoted online. If you’re reading this, you may get the impression that we’re always begging for cash!"
The problem is that not all Plasma users are plugged into those communications channels, which inspired the idea for the yearly pop-up.
Other new features for 6.2 include the ability to block apps from inhibiting sleep mode, a new "fill" mode for wallpaper, an overhauled System Settings Accessibility page, and the usual slew of bug fixes.
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