Two Years Of KDEPIM: 2014, 2015

It's been a while since I delved into KDE. With me no longer working at KDAB, my contributions are really restricted to helping out in KDE e.V. and, even then, normally only when someone specifically ask for me. KDE, of course, continues to be a community I care about very much. I wanted to do a very basic health check of my old stomping ground: KDEPIM.

So what does a very basic health check look like? Here I'm showing the blue blobs for each of 2014 and 2015.We'll take a look at each individually and then have a quick comparison...

If we ignore the localisation daemon (I think that's legit) we can see ~50 contributors to KDEPIM in 2014. Of those, roughly 50% were casual contributors (contributors that appear in one or two weeks and then disappear). The "shape" of the year is as to be expected. The start of the year sees the contained contribution of the regular members of the team through January. Over the rest of the year we see "new" members of the team appear gradually. I say "new" because some of these contributors have been around in KDE for quite some time.

I'm particularly pleased to see so many familiar names in this picture. KDAB and Kolab Systems continue to employ a great deal of these contributors and a few other long-term contributors are still around... Hi David Jarvie! Laurent was busy every week of the year apart from one. Take a holiday, dude?

Now what does 2015 look like?

Overall contribution appears to be roughly the same. Whilst the number of casual contributors appears to have decreased, the long-term reliable contributors have been busier than ever (darker blue blobs). Laurent, once again, was ultra busy in all but one week. Take a holiday, dude?

The Comparison: Anything To Learn?

For me, the obvious take-home here is that KDEPIM is managing to nicely sustain a core developer team. The downside, however, is a community that is shrinking overall; there is a distinct drop in casual contribution. BTW, don't be confused (like I was) about Dan Vrátil... at first I thought his contribution had dropped, but what actually happened was he changed his git author ID :)

The question that immediately comes to mind: is this drop in casual contribution being seen across KDE projects?

Of course the next question is: is the drop in casual contribution problematic? Without knowing the underlying cause, I'm still inclined to say "yes". These casual contributors are the base from which communities grow. KDEPIM is sustaining itself nicely but the next generation needs to be encouraged if the technology is to survive. The existing community not only needs to engage new contributors, but to share their knowledge of the codebase with them if it is to be maintained in the long run.

Oh, and can we please protect Laurent in bubble wrap?