Original note from: MuyLinux
To read the original in Spanish by J Pomeyrol, click here
KDE Applications is renamed KDE Gear. This is how the news could begin and end, but as it is not a plan, we will explain it to you in more detail, so that you are warned when in a few weeks we announce the launch of KDE Gear 21.04, the next update of the KDE project applications.
The change is announced by Jonathan Riddell, KDE developer and principal responsible for KDE neon. He sums it up in his blog post: “KDE Gear is the new name for the application package (and libraries and plugins). Once it was simply called KDE, then KDE SC, then KDE Applications … […] and now we are grouping it again as KDE Gear ».
As you already know, for a few years now, the KDE project releases its software in three main packages: KDE Frameworks, which are the libraries of the entire set; KDE Plasma, which includes the desktop and some basic tools; and KDE Applications, where most of the applications developed under the wing and technologies of KDE are collected. Each of these packages has its own development and release times, although for the end user they intrinsically make up the desktop environment.
For example, with the launch of KDE Plasma, tools such as the Discover application store are included, or in its latest version, the new system monitor, while KDE Applications include many more, many of which are not pre-installed by default; but there are also them as basic as the Dolphin file manager or the Konsole terminal client. And of course none of this would work without the KDE Frameworks foundation.
The reason for the name change at this point is not clear either, but as Riddell points out in his note, it is not the first time that has happened … although we hope it will be the last in a long time, because what a mess. From being all KDE to dissecting it into parts, see KDE SC (for Software Compilation). However, if we go back further, the name KDE Gear makes sense.
Thus, although the bulk of KDE applications are currently developed and released under the heading of KDE Applications, there are some that use KDE technologies but follow their own development and release cycle, such as Krita or digiKam, applications that are traditionally they understood within what was called KDE Extragear. In fact, some started that way and ended up becoming part of the “official” collection.
Be that as it may, KDE Gear will now bring together the applications of the KDE project. Keep it in mind.