Germany cuts Steam Deck desktop devs a $1.5 million cheque, they declare an end to ‘insecure spyware-riddled software imposed by the likes of Microsoft’
Germany’s Sovereign Tech Agency has allocated €1.3 million (approximately $1.5 million) from its Sovereign Tech Fund to support the KDE free and open-source software community. This investment represents a significant commitment to FOSS development and particularly benefits the KDE Plasma desktop environment, which serves as the default desktop interface on Valve’s Steam Deck.
KDE Plasma is one of the two dominant Linux desktop environments, alongside GNOME, which previously received €1 million from the same fund. The Plasma environment provides the user interface for Steam Deck and is widely adopted across numerous Linux distributions. The funding will support development, maintenance, and security improvements for KDE’s ecosystem.
This investment reflects growing governmental interest in supporting open-source software infrastructure, particularly as nations seek to reduce dependence on proprietary commercial software. The Sovereign Tech Fund specifically targets critical open-source projects that serve public interest and national technology sovereignty. The support for KDE represents a recognition of Plasma’s importance to the Linux ecosystem and its role in providing alternatives to proprietary desktop environments.