About the program
Season of KDE is the KDE community's winter mentoring program: one ecosystem - Plasma, KDE apps, the framework libraries, documentation, marketing and design - opening its doors for a season instead of a summer. Because it runs January to March, it is the natural companion to GSoC applications that get written in the same winter.
What makes it distinctive is breadth: non-code tracks for design, identity, docs and community work are first-class, with the same mentors and prizes as the code projects. Contributors ship into the software millions of Linux desktops run.
Primary stack
Technical focus
The path
- 01Ideas list (Sep - Nov)
KDE projects publish code and non-code ideas; pick the project, not just the task.
- 02Registration (Dec)
Short proposal plus an intro on the KDE channels. Accepted contributors get a named mentor.
- 03Season (Jan - Mar)
Mentored work with weekly updates; graduation is a completed demo merged or released with the KDE stack.
- 04Prizes and beyond
Top completions win prize tiers (EUR 300 - 1,000), and season alumni pick up maintainer hats routinely.
Who it's for
- C++ and Qt developers who want desktop software with real users
- Designers and writers who want mentored OSS credits, not just code
- Anyone stacking programs - SoK's winter calendar pairs with GSoC's summer
What you walk away with
- EUR 300 - 1,000 prize tiers on completion
- Work shipped in Plasma, KDE apps or frameworks
- Mentorship in one of desktop Linux's oldest communities
- A winter portfolio piece that GSoC committees read as proof of consistency
Program timeline
Calendar positions for the 2026 cycle - the marker shows October, where you are now.
- Ideas listOct - Nov
- RegistrationDec - Jan
- MentoringJan - Mar
Organizations
Reading the participation record...
More programs we track
Everything else on the calendar - 12 other mentored routes from first PR to paid season.
