[nycticorax]

So, first off, it seems like Jonathan Riddell not working on KDE anymore is a huge loss for the KDE community.

But I'm not sure I really understand what happened. AFAICT, Valve had a contract with Blue Systems, specifically a subunit of Blue Systems that does KDE development. Blue Systems decided to sell that subunit to Techpaladin, Nate Graham's company. Riddell was unhappy about this, and proposed that... I guess that Blue Systems not sell to Techpaladin? Or that Techpaladin reorganize itself into a worker-owned company? And then when Graham declined to do this, stuff happened, and eventually Riddell got fired from Techpaladin, or not hired by Techpaladin, and now Riddell is not getting paid to work on KDE. So Riddell has (not unreasonably) decided to stop working on KDE. And the other people who once worked for Blue Systems and now work for Techpaladin have decided to keep working for Techpaladin.

Am I missing something? Being unfair to someone?

[chao-]

This is my takeaway as well. Having brushed up against a few things like this, I assume there is more back-and-forth about reorganizing Tech Paladin than what is published. However, I am certainly not suggesting an escalatory exposé of communications, as it likely does nothing to change the two bottom line facts: Riddell was not included in the new company, possibly over their disagreement regarding company structure, but this isn't something we could know for certain. Following that, Riddell decided to end contributions to KDE.

EDIT: Updated to reflect details from https://pointieststick.com/2025/09/16/a-few-corrections-abou... reflecting that "...at no point was [Nate Graham] or Techpaladin ever Jonathan’s employer."