Last year, Plasma developers canceled the long-term support (LTS) version of Plasma. Why?
We had a few reasons:
- Almost nobody was using it; really only Kubuntu. Other discrete-release operating systems like Debian and openSUSE Leap generally ignored it.
- It wasn’t a real LTS; we only backported some fixes for Plasma, and nothing for the Frameworks it was built upon, nor the Gear-aligned KDE apps it shipped with.
- Our backporting of fixes was fairly blind since there weren’t CI resources to validate them, and nobody ever felt like testing them manually.
As a consolation prize for canceling the Plasma LTS product, we decided at the time to add an additional bug-fix release to the normal Plasma schedule, effectively lengthening the support period for each non-LTS Plasma version by 2 months — from 4 months to 6.
And as a result, there have been no Plasma 6 LTS versions.
…Until now!
Plasma 6.6 is now an LTS version. And not just Plasma 6.6 itself, but also a specific version of KDE Frameworks: 6.24, which will also receive backported bug-fixes. And Gear 25.12, too!
What changed?
It wasn’t a change to my or anyone else in KDE’s opinion of what a proper LTS product looks like. Rather, it was the Kubuntu Focus company stepping up to fund the creation of one, as announced today!
That’s right, Kubuntu focus is sponsoring a Plasma 6.6 LTS product for the next three years!
This consists of a couple of pieces:
First of all, Kubuntu Focus is sponsoring Techpaladin Software to fix bugs identified by Kubuntu 26.04 users. (full disclosure: I’m the CEO of Techpaladin Software). We’re not just backporting bug-fixes that happen to get made, but rather actively working with the Kubuntu folks to identify and fix pain points experienced by them and their users.
Plasma 6.6 will thus remain eligible for bug reports for the next three years, and we’ll do our best to get them fixed and backported.
Speaking of which, we’ll be backporting fixes for more than just Plasma 6.6 — relevant ones will also to Frameworks 6.24 and Gear 25.12, the versions that Kubuntu 26.04 ships with. The whole KDE part of the software stack!
Finally, Kubuntu Focus is sponsoring additional continuous integration resources owned by KDE e.V. to handle the load of validating changes made to these older versions. And they’ve been generous enough to sponsor more than was strictly speaking needed for the initiative, so KDE in general benefits from faster CI times even for non-LTS work!
We’re calling the whole thing the “Bullet-Proof KDE Initiative”.
This is what a real LTS initiative looks like, folks: people involved with an OS putting the resources into making a non-LTS upstream release into an LTS one, properly. With bug fixes — not just security fixes — backported to all levels of the software stack, not just the top one.
So I predict Kubuntu 26.04 promises to offer the best KDE experience of any Kubuntu release ever!
I know a lot of folks really enjoyed Kubuntu’s 24.04 release because of how it lined up with Plasma 5.27, which we made an LTS release for an extended period of time during the Plasma 6 transition. Well, this is the same thing, only with a great version of Plasma 6 included, and supported for even longer!
Aha, so you’re a sell-out who changed his opinions about LTS due to money!
My opinion remains the same: I don’t dislike LTS products — only fake ones that promise support but don’t actually deliver it. With this initiative, users of Kubuntu 26.04 get a real LTS product, with real support backed by a pair of commercial companies.
So this is all a commercial thing? KDE gone korporate?
It’s largely a commercial initiative between Kubuntu Focus and Techpaladin Software, yes — though KDE e.V. has signed off on the initiative and agreed to accept funding for the new CI resources.
Both companies are good citizens in the KDE ecosystem: KDE e.V. patrons, employers of engineers you’ve heard of, and providers of hardware and services to users of KDE software.
And the benefits accrue far beyond just the companies. Obviously Kubuntu 26.04 users benefit, even those who didn’t buy a computer from Kubuntu Focus. And as I mentioned earlier, all of KDE now has more general-purpose CI resources. Also, many of the LTS bugs that Techpaladin people have already fixed were affecting people on later Plasma versions, too! Everyone wins here.
So the commercial part is not a limitation on what anyone else gets for free or is allowed to do; it’s just an acknowledgement that creating a real LTS product costs money.
Wow, really cool! How can I help?
Anyone in the wider KDE community who’s interested in this kind of thing should feel comfortable backporting important and safe bug-fixes to the stable branches for Plasma 6.6, Frameworks 6.24, and Gear 25.12. There will be a Kubuntu CI runner that makes sure nothing breaks (at least, nothing that’s tested in the CI! So keep that test coverage high).
And if you happen to run discrete-release OS and would like to get in on the action, feel free to ship Plasma 6.6 and invest some of your own resources into it! It will be very welcome to see more people fixing bugs reported by LTS users that are still present on master, or backporting more recent bug-fixes to the LTS version. Again, everybody wins here!
Adventures in Linux and KDE 
What about Qt? I’m sorry but having an LTS release of Plasma and frameworks is meaningless if Qt can’t also be LTS. Is Qt going to be vulnerable while the rest of Plasma will have the facade of LTS? If Qt is going to be LTS too, how does that work with Qt’s business model? Honestly, it sounds a bit money launderingish
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i think the reason why you pay a company to handle this stuff is because they will specifically handle this stuff
Also in addition to that if Qt has vulnerabilities then most likely Canonical themselves would be interested in patching it. Since Canonical fundamentally “ships the same LTS”
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I’ve been informed that Qt security fixes are backported as a part of the “Ubuntu Pro” subscription, which is free for a certain number of machines. So for anyone concerned about this who uses Kubuntu on one or two personal machines, that sounds like a reasonable solution.
P.S. you may want to look up the definition of “money laundering”, as the way you’re using it here doesn’t make any sense — quite apart from the silliness of accusing malfeasance because this initiative doesn’t give away enough stuff to the public for free. 🙂
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This is a great initiative that will only further solidify KDE as a true alternative to Microsoft in a professional / business setting, as well as offering an alternative to those who just want a simple, reliable, basic OS.
As you have indicated, it is a win-win for both the Kubuntu Focus folks and the community at large. As we know all to well, Support in the forms of LTS software AND hardware are hard requirements in the Government and private sector spaces. The icing on the cake is the benefit to normal users, and at no cost to boot.
I recall an initiative like this from your previous employer back several years ago (maybe even before you were around the KDE-sphere), but I’m not sure how successful that ultimately was.
Best of luck.
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Cool! Will Debian benefit from this too as Ubuntu loosely speaking is based on Debian packages?
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Very unlikely, since Debian already has uploaded 6.7 to Unstable and Testing, and also due to their release policy, which implies that Stable only gets security updates basically, and KDE point releases were never ported to stable in the past AFAIK.
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Historically, Debian has generally ignored KDE’s LTS releases, and Jan confirms they’ve already got 6.7 in testing, so I suspect the same will happen here.
For Plasma 5.27, which was an LTS release, they did end up shipping it (well, 5.27.5) but they ignored all the follow-up bug-fix releases, defeating the point of shipping LTS software!
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