I can't imagine how much great software KDE could produce with another 50k, let alone 500k, in corporate sponsorship. It has fewer developers with a broader reach than Gnome and an even older legacy.
Just a really easy example is how they now have the Kirigami UI framework, and they released their software store redone in it a few months back (Discover) but the man hours and work required to port more of the collection to that toolkit would be immense. And even Discover is missing a lot of polish since its primarily a demo product at this point.
Throw another 10 developers in there (at 50k a pop?), and all those complaints about "it looks like Windows" with toolbars and dropdowns would be abated.
Just a really easy example is how they now have the Kirigami UI framework, and they released their software store redone in it a few months back (Discover) but the man hours and work required to port more of the collection to that toolkit would be immense. And even Discover is missing a lot of polish since its primarily a demo product at this point.
Throw another 10 developers in there (at 50k a pop?), and all those complaints about "it looks like Windows" with toolbars and dropdowns would be abated.