=== KDE on FreeBSD

Links: +
link:https://freebsd.kde.org/[KDE/FreeBSD initiative] URL: link:https://freebsd.kde.org/[] +
link:https://community.kde.org/FreeBSD[FreeBSD -- KDE Community Wiki] URL: link:https://community.kde.org/FreeBSD[]

Contact: Adriaan de Groot <kde@FreeBSD.org>

The KDE on FreeBSD project packages CMake, Qt, and software from the KDE Community, for the FreeBSD ports tree.
The software includes a full desktop environment called KDE Plasma (for both X11 and Wayland) and hundreds of applications that can be used on any FreeBSD machine.

The KDE team (kde@) is part of desktop@ and x11@, building the software stack to make FreeBSD beautiful and usable as a daily-driver graphical desktop workstation.
The notes below describe *mostly* ports for KDE, but also include items that are important for the entire desktop stack.

==== Infrastructure

Qt5 is now on long-term support and updates only rarely.
There was an update to 5.15.10 in this quarter.
Qt6 is now updated with the regular upstream releases, with the 6.5.2 release landing at the end of July and 6.5.3 following later.

CMake saw no updates this quarter, so we are now lagging by at least one minor release.
The changelog for the latest releases does not have much for FreeBSD, so there is no special reason to upgrade.

package:sysutils/polkit[] and package:sysutils/consolekit2[] were both updated, bringing improved security policy and console handling to the FreeBSD desktop.
package:x11/sddm[] was updated to provide a better graphical login manager.

package:multimedia/pipewire[] was updated to version 0.3.81.
This provides multimedia support for desktops such as KDE and GNOME.


==== KDE Stack

KDE Gear releases happen every quarter, KDE Plasma updates once a month, and KDE Frameworks have a new release every month as well.
These (large) updates land shortly after their upstream release and are not listed separately.

* KDE Frameworks reached version 5.110. The KDE Frameworks 5 series is winding down, although it will be six months or so before it enters long-term support upstream.
* KDE Plasma Desktop was updated to version 5.27.8. Just like frameworks, work on KDE Plasma 5 is winding down upstream in favor of KDE Plasma 6.
* KDE Gear updated to 23.08.1.

==== Related Ports

The KDE ecosystem includes a wide range of ports -- most maintained by kde@, all building on a shared base of Qt and KDE Frameworks.
The kde@ team updates them all as needed.
This quarter, for instance, tcberner@ and arrowd@ updated or fixed (much more than) this selection of ports:

* package:astro/merkaartor[]
* package:devel/massif-visualizer[]
* package:finance/alkimia[]
* package:irc/quassel[]
* package:net-im/kaidan[]
* package:sysutils/bsdisks[]
* package:sysutils/k3b[]

Thanks to jhale@, package:devel/qtcreator[] was updated to 11.0.3, providing another featureful integrated development environment for creating Qt and KDE applications.

==== Deprecations

Web browsers are huge, and have a considerable security surface.
The venerable package:www/qt5-webkit[] WebKit port has been slated for removal and consumers have been moved to WebEngine.
The fork of WebKit that we relied on is no longer actively maintained.
