Foundation and CoinLab v. Mt.Gox

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Everybody count to ten and take a deep breath in.... hold... out....

Ok.

If you have ever been involved with an organization that has more than three members, you should know that there will always be conflicts between members. Always.

Since the Foundation has corporate members, and since corporations use the legal system to help resolve their disputes (much better than using guns, by the way) it isn't surprising that one member of the Foundation is suing another.

The fact that they both happen to be on the Foundation Board is, in my view, not terribly relevant.

Correct. It is quite normal, within a trade group, for members to sue each other.

Let's make an analogy with the Linux Foundation, which is set up as a neutral trade group promoting Linux, funding Linus Torvalds, funding kernel.org, and Linux-related conferences.

Here is the list of Linux Foundation members: http://www.linuxfoundation.org/about/members If you follow the tech press at all, you can see that they sue each other all the time.

tl;dr: breathe.

Guy look. I understand. But this it NOT inspiring confidence in the already VERY skittish Bitcoin Community. Not to mention the general public where we are already viewed as at best a bunch of pointy headed geeks and at worst money launders and drug dealers/buyers.

The foundation should be leading the cause and not creating more drama.

The "legal system" is a far more dangerous resolution mechanism when it is backed by a sick culture and holds distorted values. Corporations and institutions hold grudges and promote artificial competition because the legal system promotes such antisocial and counterproductive behavior. Hopefully the people involved can resolve this situation before it escalates to corporate warfare where customers and stakeholders suffer disproportionately more than the principles involved. I'm not holding my breath, however.

It has already devolved to "corporate warfare."