KDE Codes Conduct, Working Group, and Fiduciary Duty

The general assembly of KDE e.V. — the non-profit foundation that handles the KDE project's legal and financial matters — met last week in the midst of this year's KDE Akademy — currently underway through Friday in Sint-Katelijne-Waver, Belgium — and out of their meeting comes a triad of freshly ratified proposals designed to protect the best interests of the project and its members.

Issuing forth from the assembly are three new community-related fixtures. First out of the gate is ratification of a proposed Code of Conduct, calling for community members to be considerate and respective, collaborative and pragmatic, and to support — and get support from — others in the community. The full text of the Code is available online; it expresses appreciation to other communities, including Ubuntu — widely know for its Code of Conduct — by name, for helping to shape the proposal.

Also approved was the establishment of a Community Working Group, intended to serve as a point-of-communication between users and developers, working to pass user feedback to developers as well as relating developer plans back to users. The initial members named to the Group are: Tom Albers, Martin Fitzpatrick, Lydia Pintscher, Juan Carlos Torres, and Anne Wilson.

Finally, the association adopted a Fiduciary License Agreement, which allows developers to assign to KDE the ability to change the license of their work contributed to KDE in the event they are unable to do so. The intent of the FLA is to maintain the ability of KDE to re-license the project's code should the need arise — one stated example was the GPL being voided. The FLA is entirely voluntary, though the association "suggests" it as a method to prevent future licensing problems. Further information on the FLA, and the other approved proposals, is expected in the near future on the association's website.

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