Fedora KDE gets a promotion

The Fedora Project is set to welcome a second desktop edition to its lineup after months (or years, depending when one starts the clock) of discussions. The project recently decided to allow a new working group to move forward with a KDE Plasma Desktop edition that will sit alongside the existing GNOME-based Fedora Workstation edition. This puts KDE on a more equal footing within the project, which, it is hoped, will bring more contributors and users interested in KDE to adopt Fedora as their Linux distribution of choice.

A quick recap

In April, Fedora's KDE special interest group (SIG) put forward a change proposal to switch Fedora Workstation's desktop from GNOME to KDE. While there was little chance of that being adopted, it did lead to discussions that bore fruit in the form of a request to upgrade KDE to full edition status. On November 7 the Fedora Council approved that request, beginning with Fedora 42.

In the early days of Fedora, users were left to their own devices to pick and choose software to install, including the window manager or desktop environment, if any. This was eventually deemed to be a disadvantage compared to other Linux distributions (namely Ubuntu) that provided a simpler, curated default set of packages which removed the "choose your own adventure" aspect of installing a Linux desktop.

The Ubuntu philosophy tended to appeal to users coming from the Windows and Apple ecosystems, which presented no confusing choices about desktop environments—or, indeed, any need to install an operating system in the first place. While a "one desktop fits all" approach might sound stifling to experienced Linux users, new users often have no frame of reference for choosing between GNOME, KDE, Xfce, and others.

In 2013, the Fedora project assembled working groups to develop plans and requirements for three Fedora-based editions (originally called "products" or "flavors"): Fedora Cloud, Fedora Server, and Fedora Workstation. The working group behind Fedora Workstation decided to standardize on GNOME as the desktop environment. The first iteration, Fedora Workstation 21, was released in December 2014.

If users wanted another desktop, they would need to install it separately or turn to Fedora Spins that featured their preferred desktop—if there was one. Spins were a concept that the Fedora project established in 2007 to target specific use cases or subsets of users. Spins are composed entirely of packages from Fedora's official package repositories, but do not enjoy the same level of support from the project. For example, spins receive little attention in announcements created by the Fedora Marketing team and are generally not release blocking. If, say, the Xfce desktop spin is horribly broken when it's time to ship Fedora 42, then the release train can leave the station without it.

KDE, however, is an exception to this policy. The KDE spin was declared release blocking ahead of the Fedora 21 release while the KDE SIG worked on a proposal for Fedora to offer a KDE-focused product as well.

"Neither endorse nor oppose"

Now, a mere 10 years or so later, KDE is finally on its way to edition status—after the KDE SIG forced the discussion in April by proposing KDE replace GNOME in the Workstation edition. After much discussion Fedora Project Leader Matthew Miller suggested that the KDE SIG negotiate with the Workstation working group about elevating KDE Plasma in some fashion. In May when LWN last covered the story, the KDE SIG was still waiting on a response from the Fedora Workstation working group.

On May 15, Michael Catanzaro replied that the Workstation working group had a response. The working group expressed concern that a second desktop edition could risk diluting Fedora's focus and jeopardize Fedora's growth:

We do not want users to be presented with a choice between multiple desktop environments. This would be extremely confusing for anybody who is not already an experienced Linux user. [...]

The generic desktop use case is already satisfied by Fedora Workstation: it's a Linux desktop suitable for everybody except people who specifically want to use other desktop environments. Although a Fedora KDE edition would also fulfill this same role, we suggest not prominently advertising it as such to avoid introducing confusion as to which edition undecided users should download. Instead, it could be advertised as a desktop intended for people who want to use KDE Plasma specifically.

At the same time, it acknowledged that KDE Plasma was a "particularly high-quality desktop", with an especially large community of users and developers. Failing to attract those users to Fedora, it said, "will certainly limit Fedora's user base growth". Therefore, it would "neither endorse nor oppose the proposal for Fedora KDE Plasma Desktop to become a new Fedora edition".

Personal systems working group

With the Workstation working group unwilling to work on a KDE edition, the KDE SIG set about creating its own working group, the Fedora Personal Systems Working Group (Fedora PSWG). Following discussions at Fedora's Flock conference in August, the PSWG opened a ticket with the Fedora Council in September with a request to upgrade the KDE spin to edition status. If the move to full edition status were approved, the submission said, then Fedora's KDE SIG would withdraw the change request to replace GNOME with KDE Plasma for the Workstation edition.

Participants in the discussion thread on Fedora's forum were largely supportive of elevating KDE to edition status. A few people were unhappy, however, with the "kindergarten move" of tying the withdrawal of the change proposal to replace GNOME with the acceptance of request to upgrade KDE to edition status. Miller said that the KDE SIG did that because it "felt backed into that corner" because the policy for promoting a deliverable to edition status requires a distinct use case that "a Fedora Edition is not currently serving". By many interpretations, the GNOME-based Workstation edition already served the broad desktop use case, which means that no other desktop-focused editions need apply.

That policy was adopted in 2020, when the project was in the process of adding two new editions, Fedora IoT and Fedora CoreOS. Specifically, the policy's requirement that an edition address a "distinct, relevant and broad use-case or user-base that a Fedora Edition is not currently serving" seemed to conflict with having two desktop-oriented editions. However, Miller said that he was in favor of an exception to that policy because "there is plenty of room to expand Fedora usage on the desktop generally".

On September 30, Miller started a discussion about changing the edition promotion policy to explicitly allow the Fedora Council to make exceptions to the "distinct" rule "when we determine that doing so best fits the Project's Mission and Vision". In that discussion, he explained that he wanted to keep the exception narrow, because there is a cost to the project for each edition:

Quality, rel-eng, packagers, marketing, design, website, docs, Ask Fedora, and other teams are all asked to take on more. When a new Edition overlaps with an existing one (or changes to an Edition or in the world create an overlap between two existing Editions), that has a cost too. We want a family of Editions that support each other, not accidental zero-sum games.

The Fedora Council approved Miller's amendment to the editions policy on October 22. After that passed, discussion resumed on the request before the Fedora Council to upgrade KDE to full edition status. Miller noted that the request would need "full consensus", which the council guidelines define as at least three votes in favor and no votes against to pass. On November 7, the request was marked approved with nine votes in favor and no votes abstaining or against the proposal.

Next steps

Though the vote passed, a few topics came up that were set aside for later discussion. For example, a need to define the scope of testing, and a need to develop the marketing story for Fedora having two desktop editions. Miller also said he was against the concept of a personal systems workgroup "which does not include at minimum all Desktop Editions". Neal Gompa, however, pushed back on the idea of forcing the GNOME and KDE editions into a single workgroup:

It doesn't actually make sense to force everyone into the same group. The Personal Systems WG already has plans for expansion and at least two SIGs will be part of it at launch. There are growth prospects for multi-stakeholder relevance, but forcing it is not part of the plan.

Not to mention, we already don't do this for any of the server-side teams: CoreOS, Cloud, and Server are not forced under a single banner either. It is unreasonable to require that for us.

Miller suggested the working group might take on a more specific name if all desktop editions could not live under one working group, such as the KDE Edition WG, but Gompa objected to that as well. For now, there's no decision either way.

The experience for Fedora KDE Plasma users is unlikely to change much as a result of its upgrade to edition, but the bureaucratic load for the KDE SIG/PSWG will increase substantially. The edition policy spells out work that will need to be done before the Fedora KDE Plasma Desktop spin can be an edition. If the name changes, which seems likely, it will need trademark approval from the Fedora Council. It will need to have a full product requirements document (PRD) similar to the PRD for Workstation to define its target market, the user types it would try to appeal to, the core applications, unique policies, and more. And, of course, there are marketing materials and more that will need to be revised or created. That is no small undertaking.

Currently, the plan appears to be to introduce the yet-to-be-named KDE edition with Fedora 42, which is due to be released in May 2025. This means that the work to upgrade KDE Plasma to full edition status would need to be completed, or close to complete, by the Fedora—42 beta launch in March.

It has been a long journey for Fedora KDE to reach edition status, and it will be interesting to see whether its elevation results in significantly more users for KDE and Fedora in the coming years.