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.
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.
Honestly, it seems some very technically minded people are very naive and very unprepared in regards to practical and legal aspects of life elsewhere.
While building a career over such a project like KDE is certainly laudable it seems it leaves people in a very precarious position where the number of companies worldwide where you can be employed at any given time can be counted with the fingers in one hand, with some to spare
> While building a career over such a project like KDE is certainly laudable it seems it leaves people in a very precarious position where the number of companies worldwide where you can be employed at any given time can be counted with the fingers in one hand, with some to spare
Your average KDE contributor is an expert in at least two widely used technologies, C++ and Qt, and typically in several more. Purely KDE-related work may not be a huge employment market, but trust me it's not that hard for KDE folks to find work in general, and you will find them in many high places.
That is to say that contributing is definitely not putting you into any precarious career positions :-)
Thanks for sharing that. Nate’s article links to a comment in which he says the US has no legal cooperative structure “except for limited state-specific exceptions”. I don’t know why those state-specific laws for cooperatives don’t count - they aren’t in any way restricted to operating within the organizing state. I am a member/owner of a grocery store organized under NY’s cooperative corporation law, and they definitely do business with out of state suppliers.
But that organization operates on a one person, one vote model, not a one dollar, one vote model. He seems to want one person to put in a disproportionate amount of investment capital and end up with a disproportionate amount of voting authority. That’s not the kind of “cooperative socialist” model which Jonathan was advocating, it’s a standard capitalist one.
And I’m not saying that he has no right in the way the world works now to operate as a capitalist. He does. But he shouldn’t be surprised if someone who wants a cooperative model doesn’t view that as even aspirationally qualifying and isn’t satisfied by vague comments about how workers can gradually buy their way toward an approximation of equal power.
> Nate’s article links to a comment in which he says the US has no legal cooperative structure “except for limited state-specific exceptions”. I don’t know why those state-specific laws for cooperatives don’t count - they aren’t in any way restricted to operating within the organizing state.
My guess since he’s talking about IRS rules is because the IRS doesn’t recognize those exemptions specifically and so it’s irrelevant for the federal structure of the company which they also have to have. Technically speaking even LLCs don’t really exist at the federal level. The IRS does note that it is a legal structure that states provide, but also notes that depending on how you’re structured, they will treat you as either a non-entity (basically pass through, like a sole proprietorship), as a partnership (collective pass through, no liability shields) or as a full corporation (S or C corp). There is a little bit in Subchapter T around taxing businesses that operate under a “cooperative basis” but it still seems like you’re still either a corporation or a partnership
Had to check, but it seems that KDE is "owned" (or legally represented and its trademarks owned by) a german nonprofit, KDE eV. Wouldn't there be a possibility for Riddell (or anuone in the community) to create a cooperative in Germany or any other part of the EU, just like the galician folks?
Your framing seems somehow backwards. Based on the other article[0] Nate and David bought out the business from Blue Systems. Jonathan (previously employed by Blue) proposes a co-op model, the new owners say “no thanks, we’re good”. Jonathan is surprised at this, storms out, detonating all the bridges on the way.
Doesn’t sound like we have the full story from either side. This blog post from Nate reads like he is continuing to gaslight. But then Jonathan doesn’t explain why he didn’t just buy into the partnership like the other 2 did if he wanted to be a co-owner.
Probably because he didn't have the capital. He's been doing KDE work for ages behind the scenes, but I don't think that made him much money. He hints at the fact that his professional condition hampered his attempt to keep his adopted kids with him, which would indicate he's not particularly wealthy.
We never had workers rights at Blue Systems, we were all on self employment contracts. This will continue at Tech Paladin. It is illegal but unenforceable when done on an international setup. But employment rights are not a luxury you can chose to do without if you enjoy your job and want some more flexibility in your work day. They are fundamental and life altering rights that change people’s lives as I discovered when my adopted children were taken away from me. Nobody should be doing business with or taking money from Tech Paladin else be party to illegal workers rights abuses.
It’s very common in the tech world to have a relationship between companies and international remote workers which legally meets the definition of employment in one or both countries but which pretends in the contract wording to be an independent contracting relationship.
A lot of companies decide that the risk of getting caught in this deception and the penalties which would be imposed in that case are lower than the hassle, expense, and uncertainty of doing things the legal way; while some truly don’t even realize that it is in fact a deception. And there’s very little legal risk for the employee aside from the loss of rights and benefits they should be entitled to and legally unwarranted extra financial burdens on their part, so they often bow to macroeconomic factors and accept what sources of income they can find.
Independent contracting can of course be fully legitimate if the substance of the relationship is arranged to match what the law understands independent contracting to mean. Maybe Nate’s legal advisors correctly concluded that the arrangement he’s implementing falls in this category. Maybe.
But when the substance of the relationship is employment and only the legalese and payroll look like contracting, then what’s actually happening is the employer is dodging a lot of mandatory contributions to the employee’s local social security systems (such as pension and healthcare) and a lot of the mandatory employment protections applicable in that jurisdiction.
This also pushes some or all of the mandatory contributions and benefits which legally should be the employer’s financial responsibility onto the misclassified employee, and usually without a sufficiently compensatory increase in contracting rate vs the amount they’d be paying in salary if it were correctly handled as employment. (The illegal contracting rate in an international context might still very well be above legal local employment salaries. But I’m instead comparing to what the salary would be if the exact same working relationship were handled according to the law, such as the same employer might often offer to employees in their headquarters jurisdiction.)
The employee can make a huge mess for the employer if they ever report the misclassification to the authorities with adequate proof of the true nature of the relationship, because misclassifying an employee as an independent contractor is illegal. The employer will often be audited and required to pay unpaid social contributions going back years. Sometimes the employee can also recover contributions they paid which should never have been their responsibility according to the law. But most don’t want to risk informal blacklisting from the industry or even the stress of engaging in that complaint process in the first place.
Interesting, thanks. In the United States contracting so often just means that we have the same shitty job security as the full-time employees who are a little delusional about how safe they are, we occasionally have to talk about renewing the contract, and we get paid twice as much. There's no logic to it but it's not quite as awful as what's painted above.
Blue Systems had a contract with Valve to work on KDE; Blue Systems no longer wanted to be in the contracting business; several Blue Systems employees (Nate and someone else) formed a company, Techpaladin, which Nate and that person own; said company bought out the Valve contract from Blue Systems.
Jonathan also worked at Blue Systems but seems to have wanted to be part of Techpaladin as an owner without putting any cash in to buy out the Valve contract from Blue Systems.
That said, leaping straight to workers rights, losing kids, and publicly mischaracterizing the events in this way... smells like crazy.
I got distracted by the Quaker thing and went down a rabbit hole. But overall Jonathan seems like a decent person and major loss to KDE. Only thing I'm confused about is why he got shunned and I guess he had issues with his family too. Just about anything could explain that so I feel like that's a critical piece here but I'm not looking to violate anyones privacy or force them to divulge such information. Just something that could explain where Jonathan is coming from in all this.
I read Nate's response and it seems very hand wavy. Regardless hope Jonathan can continue doing what he loves somewhere else.
Oof. I've had the experience of ex-colleagues, some of whom I thought had become friends, suddenly stopping all communication with me (In my case because I spoke up against mental and physical abuse against others). It hurt a lot. Hope surfing the wave helps.
I would encourage you to reach out the the friends you have worked with. Currently, this other person is controlling the narrative, and your friends may have been fed a very inaccurate view of what has happened.
> But in the end I lost my friends, my colleagues, my job, my career and my family.
As a Plasma user and a part of a KDE team for 10 years at some time (in the past), reading this really breaks my heart. I hope Jonathan can find peace and healing.
Readit News
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?
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."
UPDATE: Apparently it was a deal done months ago with the Blue Systems owner: https://pointieststick.com/2025/03/10/personal-and-professio...
Dead Comment
While building a career over such a project like KDE is certainly laudable it seems it leaves people in a very precarious position where the number of companies worldwide where you can be employed at any given time can be counted with the fingers in one hand, with some to spare
Your average KDE contributor is an expert in at least two widely used technologies, C++ and Qt, and typically in several more. Purely KDE-related work may not be a huge employment market, but trust me it's not that hard for KDE folks to find work in general, and you will find them in many high places.
That is to say that contributing is definitely not putting you into any precarious career positions :-)
Deleted Comment
But that organization operates on a one person, one vote model, not a one dollar, one vote model. He seems to want one person to put in a disproportionate amount of investment capital and end up with a disproportionate amount of voting authority. That’s not the kind of “cooperative socialist” model which Jonathan was advocating, it’s a standard capitalist one.
And I’m not saying that he has no right in the way the world works now to operate as a capitalist. He does. But he shouldn’t be surprised if someone who wants a cooperative model doesn’t view that as even aspirationally qualifying and isn’t satisfied by vague comments about how workers can gradually buy their way toward an approximation of equal power.
My guess since he’s talking about IRS rules is because the IRS doesn’t recognize those exemptions specifically and so it’s irrelevant for the federal structure of the company which they also have to have. Technically speaking even LLCs don’t really exist at the federal level. The IRS does note that it is a legal structure that states provide, but also notes that depending on how you’re structured, they will treat you as either a non-entity (basically pass through, like a sole proprietorship), as a partnership (collective pass through, no liability shields) or as a full corporation (S or C corp). There is a little bit in Subchapter T around taxing businesses that operate under a “cooperative basis” but it still seems like you’re still either a corporation or a partnership
[0] https://pointieststick.com/2025/03/10/personal-and-professio...
We never had workers rights at Blue Systems, we were all on self employment contracts. This will continue at Tech Paladin. It is illegal but unenforceable when done on an international setup. But employment rights are not a luxury you can chose to do without if you enjoy your job and want some more flexibility in your work day. They are fundamental and life altering rights that change people’s lives as I discovered when my adopted children were taken away from me. Nobody should be doing business with or taking money from Tech Paladin else be party to illegal workers rights abuses.
A lot of companies decide that the risk of getting caught in this deception and the penalties which would be imposed in that case are lower than the hassle, expense, and uncertainty of doing things the legal way; while some truly don’t even realize that it is in fact a deception. And there’s very little legal risk for the employee aside from the loss of rights and benefits they should be entitled to and legally unwarranted extra financial burdens on their part, so they often bow to macroeconomic factors and accept what sources of income they can find.
Independent contracting can of course be fully legitimate if the substance of the relationship is arranged to match what the law understands independent contracting to mean. Maybe Nate’s legal advisors correctly concluded that the arrangement he’s implementing falls in this category. Maybe.
But when the substance of the relationship is employment and only the legalese and payroll look like contracting, then what’s actually happening is the employer is dodging a lot of mandatory contributions to the employee’s local social security systems (such as pension and healthcare) and a lot of the mandatory employment protections applicable in that jurisdiction.
This also pushes some or all of the mandatory contributions and benefits which legally should be the employer’s financial responsibility onto the misclassified employee, and usually without a sufficiently compensatory increase in contracting rate vs the amount they’d be paying in salary if it were correctly handled as employment. (The illegal contracting rate in an international context might still very well be above legal local employment salaries. But I’m instead comparing to what the salary would be if the exact same working relationship were handled according to the law, such as the same employer might often offer to employees in their headquarters jurisdiction.)
The employee can make a huge mess for the employer if they ever report the misclassification to the authorities with adequate proof of the true nature of the relationship, because misclassifying an employee as an independent contractor is illegal. The employer will often be audited and required to pay unpaid social contributions going back years. Sometimes the employee can also recover contributions they paid which should never have been their responsibility according to the law. But most don’t want to risk informal blacklisting from the industry or even the stress of engaging in that complaint process in the first place.
Blue Systems had a contract with Valve to work on KDE; Blue Systems no longer wanted to be in the contracting business; several Blue Systems employees (Nate and someone else) formed a company, Techpaladin, which Nate and that person own; said company bought out the Valve contract from Blue Systems.
Jonathan also worked at Blue Systems but seems to have wanted to be part of Techpaladin as an owner without putting any cash in to buy out the Valve contract from Blue Systems.
That said, leaping straight to workers rights, losing kids, and publicly mischaracterizing the events in this way... smells like crazy.
I read Nate's response and it seems very hand wavy. Regardless hope Jonathan can continue doing what he loves somewhere else.
As a Plasma user and a part of a KDE team for 10 years at some time (in the past), reading this really breaks my heart. I hope Jonathan can find peace and healing.