[JDEV] Jabber DevZone News - Jabber Foundation

[Jabber DevZone]

Jabber Foundation

The following was posted by jer at jabber.org via the Jabber DevZone web site (http://dev.jabber.org/):

Jabber.org and Jabber.com are beginning the process of creating the
Jabber Foundation.  Included below are some rough ideas on how this
foundation might be organized and
it's role in the Jabber community.

The role we would like the foundation to play is one that serves this
community.  There have been many challenges lately that we've all
faced as the community grows and
development accelerates, and confusion about the roles that different
entities have within the community.  There are also new participants
that would like to be involved in
Jabber but it isn't clear how to help or where to start.  These are
issues that we hope the foundation can work towards, as well as
providing better tools and forums to the
Jabber development community.

Very quickly I put together some high level ideas of what the
foundation can do and categorized it into four Ds:


Define
Specifications for the existing protocols for clients, servers, and
services
New extensions and additions to the protocols
Feature sets and testing suites
Describe
Architecture overviews
Development, protocol, and user documentation
Common glossary and terminology definitions
Discuss
Developer news and forums
Hosting events and gatherings
Protocol and architectural growth and extensions
Disseminate
Links to clients and client projects
Comprehensive index for servers, services, and modules
Highlight related projects and integration/interoperability efforts



The foundation will be hosted at jabber.org and is seen as simply a
growth and solidification of what the site already does.  What it will
not do is any direct
technical software development, but instead foster the community and
provide tools and forums for doing development. Also, to be clear, the
foundation will be
focusing on standardization but not in the larger IM space, just
within the Jabber community itself. Some of the first steps will be
working on solidifying the
existing protocol documentation (not changing in any way, just
clarifying poorly documented areas) and setting up an open process for
working together on
extensions and feature additions. The growth of the Jabber community
alone demands these things, and this is where the foundation can start
helping most.

Here are some of the details to be discussed:


Mission: The Jabber Foundation provides organizational and technical
assistance to the Jabber Community to help accomplish its mission of
fostering "freedom of conversation" among people, applications, and
systems regardless of medium through an open communications
framework.


Charter: The Jabber Foundation shall provide direct organizational
assistance and indirect technical assistance to the Jabber Community
in carrying out its mission.  Direct organizational assistance will
include brand management, logistical support, legal assistance, press
relations, and communication facilities.  Indirect technical
assistance will include project management, protocol specification,
standards activities, documentation support, and site development.
The Jabber Foundation will not make technical decisions for Jabber
but
will help the Jabber Community to make technical decisions more
effectively. All activities and proceedings will be openly accessible
and published.


Structure: Membership-based, not-for-profit corporation.  The Jabber
Foundation will not be registered as a nonprofit or charitable
organization under Section 501(c)(3) of the U.S. Internal Revenue
Code. This means that, for individuals within the U.S., donations to
the Jabber Foundation are not tax-deductible although corporate
donations may be considered business expense, provided the
corporation
benefits from the activities of the Jabber Foundation.


Membership: Members elected by simple majority of current members. 
Requires
the submission of a simple applicant profile to help electing members
understand
the qualifications of an applicant for membership.  The initial
membership will
be defined in the Articles of Incorporation.  No more than 15% of the
membership may come from any one organization.


Projects: The Projects help direct significant development such as
server, client, or transport development.  The Jabber Foundation
Projects are established by simple majority of the Members.


Organization: Board of Directors and Executive
Committee.  Board of Directors shall direct the management of the
affairs of the corporation.  The first Board of Directors will be
defined in the Articles of Incorporation for the corporation. 
Subsequent
Boards of Directors will be elected by a majority of the
membership.  The Executive Committee shall be appointed by the Board
of
Directors and shall manage the affairs of the company for the Board
of
Directors.


Officers: Chairman, President, Secretary, Treasurer.


Term:  One Year


Number:  Initially there will be 5 members of the Board of Directors.


Incorporation: The corporation shall be incorporated in the State of
Delaware.


Offices: The offices of the corporation will be in Denver CO or as
designated by Board of Directors.


Meetings:  Annual meetings of the Corporation are required.


We're looking for any feedback, questions, suggestions, or concerns as
comments on this story, sent to info at jabber.org, or join us for 
a conference scheduled at 1pm CST tomorrow (May 4th) in
foundation at conference.jabber.org.

http://jabber.org/?oid=1309