The Organisation of the KDE Project
I was fortunate to be able to attend a presentation by the KDE
Project at SANE 2004 in Amsterdam. It struck me then that
KDE was voluntarily organising itself in the mode of a Project
Managed project. Some of the questions from the audience
indicated typical "effort versus progress" views - for example
surely every person who is on the PM side would be better
employed on Development. Here I will present what I can of the
KDE PM project.
Project Type : Composite
First of all it is important to understand that KDE is a
Composite Project. That is, the project as a whole is an
association of smaller projects, all of which have a common
dependency on the core KDE technology platform, "KParts".
KDE e.V.
KDE is a German-based project which has been registered as a
legal association in the German city of Tübingen, under
the name "K Desktop Environment e.V." or KDE e.V.
This means that KDE has a very precisely defined identity in
the world, which brings benefits in clarity of responsibility
for finances and trademark ownership. However it also brings
challenges whch arise from the distinction of the body of the
KDE community members from the KDE e.V. members. Basically, we
have the risk of mis-trust setting in.
KDE e.V. Public Description
From the KDE
e.V. Home Page :
KDE e. V. is a registered non-profit organization that
represents the KDE Project in legal and financial matters.
The stated purpose of KDE e.V. in the context of German
society is as follows:
In 1997 KDE e. V. was registered as an association to promote
science, research, education, art and culture by means of
creating and distributing general purpose computer software
free of charge to the public.
This amounts to the following, from About KDE
e.V.:
The Association aids in creating and distributing KDE by
securing cash, hardware, and other donations, then using
donations to aid KDE development and promotion.
Practically speaking, KDE e.V. is the legal entity
representing the KDE Project. Amongst other things, this means
that:
KDE and K Desktop Environment are trademarks of KDE e.V.
The Board
of Directors consists of 4 Directors. The
KDE e.V.
Membership consists of 98 active members. (as stated 26th
October 2004). Membership requires a person to be proposed by
a current member and seconded by 2 others. Board Members are
elected for a maximum period of 3 years by the Membership.
It is clear that KDE e.V. intends itself to be run
transparently, as can be seen in this quote from the
Corporate Information page:
Since KDE e.V. represents an Open Source project, it is
appropriate for all of the proceedings of the foundation to be
conducted and/or reported in full view of the public.
The KDE
e.V. Statutes are posted on the web, but despite stating
that they will be translated into English this has not been
done. I unfortunately do not have German language skills, and
so I used Babelfish
to translate the Statutes for me. Here is the
Babelfish translation of the KDE e.V. Statutes page.
Controversial
This is
described
well by Tom Chance who is not affiliated with the project.
Some of what KDE e.V. does is restricted to a body of members
of the area in question. This is initiated by the members
themselves who can elect to make their mailing lists
non-public. This precedent was set by KDE e.V. itself, and the
example seems has been followed by some KDE development areas.
KDE e.V. seems to have adopted many of the traits of a command
and control commercial organisation. The membership is limited
through proposer/seconder introductions and information on
financial matters amongst others, is only known to members.
However the frustrations expressed about the closed culture
which KDE e.V. is engendering are probably not a result of
intentional actions by the Board
of Directors - in fact quite
the opposite. In taking responsibility for the financial and
legal matters concerning KDE, KDE e.V. has set itself up as
the Executive Management of KDE.
However KDE e.V. is reluctant to broaden it's own scope
outside of it's key goals - and this prevents KDE e.V. from
taking a position on development-related matters. This
restricted scope means that the Management does not provide
any leadership - and that is very frustrating for those who
feel the urgent need for leadership in the wider KDE project.
This may be unique. Self-organising coordination of various
efforts: Testing, Documantation, Communication and Promotion,
Development Support.
From the home page:
The KDE Free Qt Foundation is an organization founded by
Trolltech and the KDE e.V. in 1998 with the purpose to secure
the availability of the Qt toolkit for the development of Free
Software and in particular for the development of the K
Desktop Environment (KDE).
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