SFLC sues SFC over trademark infringement

As the Software Freedom Conservancy (SFC) has publicly disclosed on their website, it appears that Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC) has filed for a trademark infringement lawsuit against SFC.

SFLC has launched SFC in 2006, and SFLC has helped and endorsed SFC in the past.

This lawsuit is hard to believe. What has this community come to, if its various members - who used all to be respected equally - start filing law suits against each other?

It's of course not known what kind of negotiations might have happened out-of-court before an actual lawsuit has been filed. Nevertheless, one would have hoped that people are able to talk to each other, and that the mutual respect for working at different aspects and with possibly slightly different strategies would have resulted in a less confrontational approach to resolving any dispute.

To me, this story just looks like there can only be losers on all sides, by far not just limited to the two entities in question.

On lwn.net some people, including high-ranking members of the FOSS community have started to spread conspiracy theories as to whether there's any secret scheming behind the scenes, particularly from the Linux Foundation towards SFLC to cause trouble towards the SFC and their possibly-not-overly-enjoyed-by-everyone enforcement activities.

I think this is complete rubbish. Neither have I ever had the impression that the LF is completely opposed to license enforcement to begin with, nor do I have remotely enough phantasy to see them engage in such malicious scheming.

What motivates SFLC and/or Eben to attack their former offspring is however unexplainable to the bystander. One hopes there is no connection to his departure from FSF about one year ago, where he served as general counsel for more than two decades.