One of the most impressive and useful free software projects. My first experience was being totally confused by KDE 1 during my first attempts to use Linux, and I'm writing this from my KDE desktop.

Other than the really bad KDE 4 release, the project has consistently been great for me. I've submitted a few smaller patches over the years and that experience was also low friction for a project of this size. KDE is highly customizable, full of power user features but also really simple with its current defaults (looks pretty much like Windows) and generally robust.

Shoutout to some KDE applications like Okular (great document viewer), Kate (solid tech editor), Krusader (double pane file manager) and KolourPaint (a simple image editor even I can use).

I will donate my entire pension if they make it so I can have a Windows 2000 theme that actually works and doesnt require me to hack a dozen files each time they push and update.

The master of ceremonies is a proper creature: https://floss.social/@kde/116673618808097094

edit: I appreciate the quality of discussion below, so far.

I feel quite repulsed by the fact that the first thing you see when opening the post is a huge donation card.

It's impressive for the project to have come so far. Between the oversimplified, hyper-opinionated GNOME, the rock-solid but dull and minimal XFCE, the nostalgic MATE, and whatever Enlightenment is doing these days, it’s nice to have a continually polished, modern, well-integrated yet customisable experience like KDE, even today. And save for Akonadi (which just never seems to work reliably, rendering software like KMail useless), it’s been a pretty stable one for me, too. Here’s to another 30 years!