[JDEV] Jabber, the Name

[Sean McGlynn]

I agree with you Flora that it is a problem that Jabber.com have a trademark 
on the name "Jabber". It certainly could cause confusion for anyone who 
wanted to create a site/company with Jabber in the name. IANAL, but I was 
under the impression that English language words could not be trademarked, 
but I'm sure someone will correct me on this :-)

I personally think that Jer should own the "Jabber" trademark (if it's 
actually valid at all), just as Linus owns the "Linux" trademark, and that 
the Jabber Foundation, when it kicks in, should be responsible for protecting 
Jer's interests in the trademark, just as Linux International ( www.li.org ) 
protects Linus's interests. I'm presuming here that Jer would actually want 
to own the trademark. Sorry if I'm presuming wrongly Jer :-)

I'm not going to judge Jabber.com on this before they've had a chance to 
comment though. Maybe transferring the trademark to the foundation was their 
intention all along. So, I guess this is a call for Jabber.com to outline 
their intentions and their position on the trademark issue. (And I know that 
the JDEV mailing list is technically not the most appropriate place for this 
discussion, but it does seem to be the one monitored by all the appropriate 
people!)

Just to state the obvious here; the Jabber (.org) project was founded well 
before Webb took an interest and formed Jabber.com. The two are completely 
separate entities. "If" (and it's a really big "if") Jabber.com were to start 
throwing corporate weight about with their trademark, then the answer I'm 
sure would be to simply rename the project. That's one of the benefits of the 
Open Source world; it cannot be controlled by corporate interests and we can 
call projects whatever we like ;-)

Cheers,
Sean

On Monday 14 May 2001  8:48 pm, you wrote:
> I agree with the need to separate the Jabber protocol
> from the Linux server implementation, as discussed in
> this group recently.  Many companies are interested in
> the Jabber protocol, but the open source Linux code
> isn't too useful because Windows, Java, Python, etc...
> can't use it.
>
> One major problem I've seen is Jabber.com's trademark
> of the name "Jabber".  Several companies I've run
> across were asked by Jabber.com to remove "Jabber"
> from their names.
>
> Is Jabber.com the only commercial company allowed to
> use the word "Jabber" for their company names and
> products?  This is not fair.
>
> The name "Jabber" should be similar to "Linux", in
> that any company can use it in naming products,
> websites or companies.  If Jabber.com can prevent
> other corporations from using the term "Jabber", it
> will greatly limit the progress of Jabber technology.
>
> From what I've discovered, "Jabber" was used in the
> public domain long before Webb Interactive came along
> and trademarked the name.
>
> Who coined the name Jabber originally?
>
> Was it immediately trademarked before being used as a
> public open source project?
>
> Did Jabber.com buy the name from someone?
>
> Did Jabber.org make an exclusive agreement with a
> single corporation (Jabber.com) to use the name
> Jabber?
>
> If anyone could explain why Jabber.com has a legal
> trademark on the name "Jabber", and why they prevent
> other commercial organizations from using "Jabber" in
> their company or product names, please let me know.
>
> Flora
> CEO, JabberEducation
>
>
>
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-- 
Sean McGlynn
sean at tmiau.com