Draft: Release schedules for Plasma 6.7, 6.8 and 6.9

[Martin Riethmayer]

Hi everyone,

with Plasma 6.7 being the last version with X11 support [1] and the idea 
that "6.7 would get support until 6.9 branches" (David Edmundson, [2] ), 
I re-visited my proposed schedule and also created a draft schedule for 
6.8 and 6.9.

This will be a bit of a longer e-mail, sorry, I'll try to keep it as 
short as possible.

+++++ [Plasma 6.7.] +++++
6.6.80		2026-04-30
6.6.90		2026-05-14 [Note1]
6.6.91		2026-05-28
TAR		2026-06-11
6.7.0		2026-06-16
6.7.1		2026-06-23
6.7.2		2026-06-30
6.7.3		2026-07-14
6.7.4		2026-08-04
6.7.5		2026-09-08
6.7.6		2026-11-10 [Note2]
6.7.7		2027-02-02 [Note3, Note4]

Versions:
Qt: Stay on 6.10 (as agreed upon in the last e-mail thread and on Matrix 
discussion)
KDE FW: 6.26

Notes:
[General / CI]
I'm not sure how the CI situation will work out for one extra release of 
Plasma 6.7. There were some concerns raised by Ben Cooksley [4], though 
that was with my then drafted 6.7.8 bugfix release, which has been 
dropped. The current proposal would end the 6.7 series with 6.7.7 .

[Note1] This is the Thursday following the corresponding Frameworks 
release ("expected May 8th"). It's also 2 days after 6.6.5, but that 
should be OK?

[Note2] Delayed by one week with regard to the Fibonacci sequence to 
avoid conflict with 6.8.2

[Note3] As can be seen further down this e-mail, this is about 2 weeks 
after tagging of Plasma 6.9 (scheduled for 2027-01-21)

[Note4] Even though this is one extra release compared to other Plasma 
versions, consesus so far seems to be to not call this an "LTS" release 
publicly.
+++++ [/Plasma 6.7.] +++++



+++++ [Plasma 6.8.] +++++
6.7.80		2026-09-03
6.7.90		2026-09-17 [Note5]
6.7.91		2026-10-01
TAR		2026-10-15
6.8.0		2026-10-20
6.8.1		2026-10-27
6.8.2		2026-11-03
6.8.3		2026-11-17
6.8.4		2026-12-08
6.8.5		2027-01-12
6.8.6		2027-03-16 [Note6]

Versions:
Qt: TBD (Staying with Qt 6.10 or Qt 6.11 would be possible, released 
"March 2026"[3])
KDE FW: 6.30

Notes:
[Note5] Thursday after corresponding Frameworks release ("expected Sept. 
11th")
[Note6] Delayed by one week with regard to the Fibonacci sequence to 
avoid conflict with 6.9.1


+++++ [/Plasma 6.8.] +++++


+++++ [Plasma 6.9.] +++++
6.8.80		2027-01-07 [Note7]
6.8.90		2027-01-21
6.8.91		2027-02-04
TAR		2027-02-18
6.9.0		2027-02-23
6.9.1		2027-03-02
6.9.2		2027-03-09
6.9.3		2027-03-23
6.9.4		2027-04-13
6.9.5		2027-05-18
6.9.6		2027-07-13


Versions:
Qt: TBD (Qt 6.11 and Qt 6.12 would probably both be available)
KDE FW: 6.34(?) - Not scheduled yet.

Notes:
[Note7] I've delayed this by about 2 weeks from the "usual" schedule to 
avoid a soft freeze right around Christmas. All other dates are delayed, 
therefor, too (when comparing with earlier versions of Plasma).

This might be a good time to re-think the 2-or-3-releases a year situation.

+++++ [/Plasma 6.9.] +++++

As always: this is just a quick proposal by me, trying to take into 
account previous discussions and previous schedules. I'm happy to change it.

Best regards

Martin

[1] https://blogs.kde.org/2025/11/26/going-all-in-on-a-wayland-future/
[2] https://mail.kde.org/pipermail/plasma-devel/2025-December/123833.html
[3] https://wiki.qt.io/QtReleasing
[4] https://mail.kde.org/pipermail/plasma-devel/2025-December/123826.html