I’m writing to express concern about the ideological direction of the KDE project and to offer a constructive suggestion for OpenMandriva moving forward.
A recent video by Lunduke highlights troubling examples of KDE’s alignment with extreme left-wing political activism, including the platforming of individuals who have openly encouraged violence and the exclusion of conservatives from events. This kind of political bias has no place in open source, yet it’s becoming increasingly visible in upstream KDE circles.
Originally, I had chosen KDE as a desktop environment specifically to avoid the political baggage increasingly associated with Gnome. Unfortunately, with these recent developments, it has become clear that alternatives to both Gnome and KDE must now be considered for those of us who don’t want politics injected into our software.
I realize OpenMandriva already provides an LXQt version, which is appreciated — it’s lightweight and generally free of ideological influence. That said, I’d like to formally suggest adding an Xfce edition for both Rock (LTS) and Rome (rolling). Xfce is stable, resource-efficient, and similarly apolitical, making it an excellent option for users who prioritize neutrality and performance.
Many of us value OpenMandriva precisely because it maintains independence from politicized ecosystems like Red Hat and Ubuntu. Supporting Xfce would further strengthen that stance and offer users more freedom in shaping their computing environment.
Thank you for considering this. I welcome any discussion from the community or maintainers.
I am aware of GNOME’s activism, but was not informed about KDE’s…
Although I like Xfce a lot, and it was the most use desktop in my >25yrs career, these days I’ve settled on LMDE & Cinnamon…
Cinnamon does provide some integration with the desktop clock/calendar, which is not available for Xfce.
I’ve tried twice with OM Rome and I like it, but had some issues with making CrossOver installing/running and have to use it for a few legacy/critical apps.
For now, I decided to stay on the current setup until autumn and then will reconsider OM, possibly trying Cosmic spin…
The situation with KDE that you are describing was discussed in the past. While there are aspects of that discussion I don’t agree with completely, I understand the position of OMA.
The way it works, is Plasma and Gnome are the core offerings, and other DE’s and WM’s are relegated to the community (similar to spins in other distro projects). It seems like the Xfce install has been around for a while and just needs active maintainers.
We also could use some testers for TDE since they were kind enough to add OMLx to their packaging:
After considering the current state of XFCE on OpenMandriva and reading through the linked info about spin maintenance, I’ve decided to go with Devuan + XFCE for now. Devuan aligns with my values and offers a stable, well-maintained XFCE edition without the ideological baggage found in some other upstream projects. It’s one of the few distros—aside from OM—that strikes the right balance of performance, neutrality, and simplicity.
That said, I really appreciate the OM community’s approach here. The feedback was respectful and constructive, which honestly isn’t something you always find in other forums. I’ll definitely be keeping an eye on OpenMandriva’s development going forward.
Haha, noted. Every community has its quirks, but I’m mainly after a system that respects user freedom without pushing a narrative. Devuan fits that bill for now, but I’ll absolutely keep an eye on OM’s XFCE spin as things develop.
I hope you are able to find it there. At the height of renaming the common cold, they very much were pushing authoritarian and anti-freedom narratives. People can change, and I hope for your sake that they have.
The only thing holding our XFCE spin back from getting better is volunteers. There is no shortage of opportunities to help out around here. Before you say, “But I don’t know how to help,” just know that I didn’t either in January. Since the Lunduke video, there have been a whole bunch of people who have jumped in and have been making a difference. Some worked on translations. I jumped in on the forums. Some are learning to be package maintainers.
Thanks Wilson, I really appreciate that encouragement. I’m currently studying to become a Linux Admin, so while I’m focused on building up my skills right now, I definitely plan to contribute once I get up to speed. Glad to hear others have been jumping in since the Lunduke video—that was a major wake-up call for a lot of folks. Looking forward to being able to give back soon.
Xfce is stable, resource-efficient, and similarly apolitical, making it an excellent option for users who prioritize neutrality and performance.
Regarding the statement about XFCE being apolitical, I recently looked at their about page, and it states:
Another priority of Xfce is adherence to standards, specifically those defined at freedesktop.org.
freedesktop.org conforms to the Contributor Covenant, which has been associated with much political activity, so it may not be as apolitical as you might imagine.
Thanks for pointing that out, Tristan — I hadn’t made the connection between XFCE’s standards adherence and freedesktop.org’s alignment with the Contributor Covenant. That’s definitely something to keep in mind. I still appreciate that the XFCE devs themselves don’t seem to push overt messaging in their software or public channels, which is more than I can say for some other projects. But you’re right — upstream affiliations matter too, and it’s worth staying informed.
Based on my own experience (for what that may be worth) I can tell you there will be several projects that appear on the outside to respect freedom, but they are funded by entities that do not.
There have also been many activist and fake outrage accounts trying to slowly change the culture of FOSS projects over time. Particularly over language policing, virtue signalling, and political correctness. There are three projects that I have been involved with in which Issues were created specifically to change language because certain people could be offended. It gives them a data point to either increase efforts or create a cancel brigade.
One of the many resources that I use outside of funding and CoC research, is the RMS open letter. Everyone on that list hates freedom, and I mean the essential freedom of speech, which you must have to get freedom of information and thus FOSS:
On it you will find not just individuals, but organizations. Calyx Institute, Creative Commons, GNOME Foundation, OBS Project, Mozilla, Xorg Foundation, and Tor Project are some of the most notable ones and the usual suspects in activism campaigns.
Hyprland is probably the least political graphical environment. Obviously the project lead, Vaxry, has his own opinions, but he doesn’t require contributors to adhere to his beliefs.
