KDE Turns 30: The Free Desktop Project Behind WebKit and Blink

KDE is marking its 30th anniversary with community events, fundraising appeals, and a retrospective on three decades of free software development. The project is leaning on its end-user base, which supplies 70% of its funding, urging supporters to become recurring members or make one-time donations to cover infrastructure, contractor work, contributor travel, and targeted development.

Alongside the celebration, KDE is pushing a “30 for 30” environmental challenge, asking community members to take on sustainability projects ranging from rescuing old hardware from landfills to converting users to free operating systems. The anniversary materials also surface lesser-known parts of the project’s legacy, including the KHTML rendering engine KDE built in 1998-1999, which became the foundation for Apple’s WebKit and Google’s Blink — meaning Chrome, Safari, Edge, Opera, and most modern browsers still trace their lineage to KDE code. The project also notes its software appeared on NASA workstations during the Opportunity Mars rover mission.