KDE Plasma is a nice desktop environment for people who prefer a traditional desktop layout with a taskbar at the bottom and a Start menu-style application launcher. It's also highly customizable, allowing users to tweak nearly every aspect of the interface.
In contrast to other desktop environments, KDE offers a long-term support release (LTS) of Plasma, where bug fixes and security updates are provided for an extended period, with no new major changes being introduced.
However, that is no longer the case now.
What's Happening: Shared by Nate Graham, a prominent contributor within the KDE community, KDE has decided to stop working on LTS releases of Plasma, shifting its focus on extending support for the bug-fix and feature releases instead.
The reasoning behind this move is multi-faceted, with factors such as inconsistent expectations from the community, developers' reluctance to work on older versions, and the lack of consistency in LTS support for Frameworks and Gear apps.
Nate also mentioned that many users of LTS Linux distributions were reporting issues they faced with KDE software to them, when in reality, they should have been reporting them to the developers of the LTS distros.
What to Expect: Shifting their focus, KDE will now offer an additional bug-fix release, extending the bug-fix support period, and will reduce Plasma feature releases to two per year instead of three.
If you didn't know, a bug-fix release comes with smaller updates focused on fixing bugs, addressing security vulnerabilities, and improving the overall stability. Whereas, a feature release introduces new features, improvements, and changes for Plasma.
The KDE developers are also hoping to sync the two feature releases with biannual Linux distro releases like Kubuntu and Fedora.
In the end, I believe this move will provide Plasma users with a better Linux desktop experience, thanks to the extended bug-fix period, which will enhance the stability of each release.
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