KDE Plasma drops LTS releases but will do extra bug fix releases, along with a new Steam-like hardware survey

KDE developer Nate Graham has written up a blog post detailing some planned changes coming to the KDE Plasma desktop, including doing away with the LTS (Long-Term Support) releases and instead extend the supported time for each release.

Instead of their not-so-great LTS releases where Graham admitted they were just backporting fixes "usually without even testing them", they're going to "lengthen the effective support period of normal Plasma releases a bit by adding on an extra bug-fix release, taking us from five to six".

They're also going to be thinking again on reducing the amount of Plasma releases a year from three down to two, which would allow them to better align with Kubuntu and Fedora releases. They will be discussing that again at the Akademy event in a few months time.

Pictured - My KDE Plasma (Kubuntu) main desktop

On top of that KDE Plasma is moving away from QML-based theming, as it's "just inherently dangerous because QML is code; there’s not really a way to make QML theming safe", like the 2024 data loss issue.

As for gathering data from users, they're also going to be changing how they do it, since they're collecting "very little data from people who have opted in (because it’s off by default)". What they're going to do is make the system work more like the Steam Hardware Survey, and show a box on the screen asking you to participate in the survey (with an option to disable it). Sounds like a good idea. Developers need data so they know where to focus.