KDE has always had paid developers behind it, but only a handful. Different companies used to employ people to work on KDE including TrollTech, Nokia, Novell,

KDE has always had paid developers behind it, but only a handful. Different companies used to employ people to work on KDE including TrollTech, Nokia, Novell, Blue Systems, Canonical, Red Hat. I think these days it's only Blue Systems that does so. Maybe also Novell but I could be wrong. The overwhelming majority of the work is done by community and volunteers. Gnome always had more corporate backing, primarily Red Hat.