The KDE project started on October 14th 1996 (and the project has thus celebrated its 15th birthday already) with a call for programmers in
comp.os.linux.misc: the original announcement of the KDE Project in 1996 (use Google™ Groups to find the original posting).
At the 2003 Kastle conference Matthias Kalle Dalheimer gave a presentation about the history of the KDE project.
Contributor Meetings
There have been roughly yearly large-scale contributor meetings for the KDE community since very early in the project.
Since the KDE e.V. was created the yearly meeting is a requirement of its bylaws, so we can count on it now.
- Akademy 2014 - Brno, Czech Republic
- Akademy 2013 - Bilbao, Basque Country of northern Spain
- Akademy 2012 - Tallinn, Estonia
- Desktop summit - Berlin, Germany
- Akademy 2010 - Tampere, Finland
- Akademy 2009 - Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain
- aKademy 2008 - Sint-Katelijne-Waver, Belgium
- aKademy 2007 - Glasgow, Scotland
- aKademy 2006 - Dublin, Ireland
- aKademy 2005 - Málaga, Spain
- aKademy 2004 - Ludwigsburg, Germany
- Kastle - Nové Hrady, Czech Republic 2003
- KDE Three - Nürnberg, Germany, 2002
- KDE Three Beta - Trysil, Norway 2000
- KDE Two - Erlangen, Germany 1999
- KDE One - Arnsberg, Germany 1997
Contributor Awards
KDE contributors have been awarding the Akademy Awards to fellow KDE contributors since aKademy 2005.
Timeline
- KDE was founded in October 1996. Its announcement is dated 14th October 1996.
- August 15, 1997: KDE-ONE in Arnsberg, Germany, 15 participants
- December 1997: KDE e.V.i.G. was founded to shield core members from legal and financial liabilities
- April 8, 1998: The KDE Free Qt Foundation was announced
- Beta 1 Oct 20, 1997 - Beta 2 Nov 23, 1997 - Beta3 February 1, 1998 - Beta4 April 19, 1998
- 1.0 was released on July 12, 1998
- 1.1 was released on February 6th, 1999
- 1.1.1 was released on May 5th, 1999
- 1.1.2 was released on Sep 13th, 1999
- KDE-Two meeting in Erlangen, Oct 7-10 1999
- 1.89 was released on Dec 15th, 1999
- 1.90 (KDE2 beta1) May 12th, 2000 - 1.91 (KDE2 beta2) June 14th, 2000 - 1.92 (KDE2 beta3) July 31st, 2000
- KDE-Three Beta meeting in Trysil (Norway), July 9-19 2000
- 1.93 (KDE2 beta4) was released on August 23th, 2000
- Qt goes GPL September 04th, 2000
More information on the The Qt Issue
- 1.94 (KDE2 beta5) was released on September 15th, 2000
- 2.0 Release Candidate was released on October 10th, 2000
- 2.0 was released on October 23th, 2000
- 2.0.1 was released on December 5th, 2000
- 2.1 Beta 1 was released on December 16th, 2000
- 2.1 Beta 2 was released on January 31st, 2001
- 2.1 was released on February 26th, 2001
- 2.1.1 was released on March 27th, 2001
- 2.1.2 was released on April 30th, 2001
- 2.2 Beta1 was released on July 4th, 2001
- 2.2 was released on August 15th, 2001
- 2.2.1 was released on September 19th, 2001
- 2.2.2 was released on November 21st, 2001
- 3.0 was released on April 3rd, 2002
- 3.0.1 was released on May 22th, 2002
- 3.0.2 was released on July 2nd, 2002
- 3.1 Alpha1 was released on July 11th, 2002
- 3.0.3 was released on August 19th, 2002
- 3.1 Beta1 was released on August 21st, 2002
- 3.1 Beta2 was released on October 2nd, 2002
- 3.0.4 was released on October 9th, 2002
- 3.0.5 was released on November 18th, 2002
- 3.0.5a was released on December 21st, 2002
- 3.1 was released on January 28th, 2003
- 3.1.1 was released on March 20th, 2003
- 3.1.2 was released on May 19th, 2003
- 3.1.3 was released on July 29th, 2003
- 3.2 Alpha 1 was released on September 10th, 2003
- 3.1.4 was released on September 16th, 2003
- 3.1.5 was released on January 14th, 2004
- 3.2 was released on February 3rd, 2004
- 3.2.1 was released on March 9th, 2004
- 3.2.2 was released on April 19th, 2004
- 3.2.3 was released on June 9th, 2004
- 3.3 was released on August 19th, 2004
- 3.3.1 was released on October 12th, 2004
- 3.3.2 was released on December 8th, 2004
- 3.4 was released on March 16th, 2005
- 3.4.1 was released on May 31st, 2005
- 3.4.2 was released on July 28th, 2005
- 3.4.3 was released on October 13th, 2005
- 3.5 was released on November 29th, 2005
- 3.5.1 was released on January 31st, 2006
- 3.5.2 was released on March 28th, 2006
- 3.5.3 was released on May 31st, 2006
- 3.5.4 was released on August 2nd, 2006
- 3.5.5 was released on October 11th, 2006
- 3.5.6 was released on January 25th, 2007
- 4.0 Alpha 1 was released on May 11th, 2007
- 3.5.7 was released on May 22nd, 2007
- 4.0 Alpha 2 was released on July 4th, 2007
- 4.0 Beta 1 was released on August 2nd, 2007
- 4.0 Beta 2 was released on September 6th, 2007
- 3.5.8 was released on October 16th, 2007
- 4.0 Beta 3 was released on October 18th, 2007
- 4.0 Beta 4 was released on October 30th, 2007
- 4.0 Development Platform Release Candidate 1 was released on October 30th, 2007
- 4.0 RC 1 was released on November 20th, 2007
- 4.0 RC 2 was released on December 11th, 2007
- 4.0 was released on January 11th, 2008
- 4.0.1 was released on February 5th, 2008
- 3.5.9 was released on February 19th, 2008
- 4.0.2 was released on March 5th, 2008
- 4.0.3 was released on April 2nd, 2008
- 4.1 Alpha1 was released on April 29th, 2008
- 4.0.4 was released on May 7th, 2008
- 4.1 Beta 1 was released on May 27th, 2008
- 4.0.5 was released on June 4th, 2008
- 4.1 Beta 2 was released on June 24th, 2008
- 4.1 RC1 was released on July 15th, 2008
- 4.1 was released on July 29th, 2008
- 3.5.10 was released on August 26th, 2008
- 4.1.1 was released on September 3rd, 2008
- 4.1.2 was released on October 3rd, 2008
- 4.1.3 was released on November 5th, 2008
- 4.2 Beta 1 was released on November 26th, 2008
- 4.2 Beta 2 was released on December 18th, 2008
- 4.1.4 was released on January 13th, 2009
- 4.2 RC was released on January 13th, 2009
- 4.2.0 was released on January 27th, 2009
- 4.2.1 was released on March 4th, 2009
- 4.2.2 was released on April 2nd, 2009
- 4.2.3 was released on May 6th, 2009
- 4.3 Beta 1 was released on May 13th, 2009
- 4.2.4 was released on June 3rd, 2009
- 4.3 Beta 2 was released on June 10th, 2009
- 4.3 RC1 was released on July 1st, 2009
- 4.3 RC2 was released on July 9th, 2009
- 4.3 RC3 was released on July 22nd, 2009
- 4.3.0 was released on August 4th, 2009
- 4.3.1 was released on September 1st, 2009
- 4.3.2 was released on October 6th, 2009
- 4.3.3 was released on November 3rd, 2009
- Rebranding of KDE on November 24th, 2009
(KDE is no longer software created by people, but people who create software.)
- 4.3.4 was released on December 1st, 2009
- 4.4 Beta 1 was released on December 4th, 2009
- 4.4 Beta 2 was released on December 21st, 2009
- 4.4 RC 1 was released on January 8th, 2010
- 4.4 RC 2 was released on January 25th, 2010
- 4.3.5 was released on January 26th, 2010
- 4.4 RC 3 was released on February 1st, 2010
- More announcements...