Basically as far as I can tell, as far as it pertains to shares, this conflict boils down purely to differing valuations of current shares (of course I'm sure on a personal level the conflict is much more complex).
Which sounds kinda ridiculous to me given that the company had $52k in the bank and had been operating at a loss for an extended period of time.
Year 0: -10k
Year 1: 0k
Year 2: 10k
Year 3: 20k
Year 4: 40k
Year 5: 80k
Year 6: 100k
Year 7: 100k
Suddenly because a founder is leaving you expect them to start turning a profit again? That seems a little backwards.
> Suddenly because a founder is leaving you expect them to start turning a profit again?
No, it's more a question of whether you think the company will ever turn a profit. That's probably the point of contention over how much the shares are worth: do you think Elementary OS will ever financially support a team? If not then you probably lean closer towards a 0 dollar valuation (or in this event 26k). If you do then you probably lean closer to a 100k valuation.
But regardless, the value of the shares are... whatever their value is now. It doesn't matter what they might be worth in 10 years if their current value is ~zero and a founder wants to divest them now.
But the current value of shares is intimately tied to what their expected future value is. Indeed in the absence of an acquisition or IPO this is the only way to determine the current value of shares. And if different people disagree on their expected future value, they will disagree on their current value.
In general, I think what is wrong with this argument is that they are both in the wrong. They founded a company that should have been a 501c and now they are talking about its value as an asset based on the willingness of people to make donations to enable developers to work on a project.
These kinds of cream on the top FOSS projects run as companies are largely relying on naive good will of people who want to fund the best project to adapt open source to them rather than the best portion of open source for them.
This said, I reckon the real issue is that the guy wants 50/60k from the shares, so the lawyer went "we'll ask for 100k and negotiate"... but on the other side they probably think 26k was already a compromise, and aren't willing to budge further.
And I can easily understand how that would rub the other cofounder the wrong way ("Oh so you believe that Elementary OS will eventually be able to hire a team down the road but you're offering me a price that indicates the opposite, even after accounting for uncertainty? Sounds like you're intentionally low-balling me here after 10 years of hard work together.") Of course from the other co-founder's point of view 70k of debt hanging over one's head is not a fun prospect either. But nothing at first glance here, without additional details, jumps out as me as brazenly unreasonable from either side.