[JDEV] Jabber, the Name

[Sean McGlynn]

On Tuesday 15 May 2001 10:40 pm, you wrote:
> Hi, sorry to be a little late on this thread.  We will definitely discuss
> this tomorrow during the Jabber Foundation text conference and that's
> probably the best forum to continue this discussion.  As StPeter has
> posted, we're going to have two meetings tomorrow, at 12pm Mountain (18
> UTC) and 4pm Mountain (22 UTC).  Not sure there's a correlation there or
> not.  :)
>
I'm hoping to make one or the other, but just in case I can't, I'll just 
leave a few comment here :-)

> So, the details are still being worked out, but, yes, the Jabber Foundation
> will help manage the use of Jabber as a trademark on behalf of the Jabber
> Community.  This was part of the impetus to establish the Jabber
> Foundation. It's a fine line to walk in managing an "open source brand". 
> Jabber.com doesn't have all the answers but perhaps together through the
> Foundation we can do this.  Certainly this should take something of a back
> seat to getting the protocol documented.
>
On the contrary, this is a fairly straightforward matter which needs to be 
resolved as soon as poss. I don't think that this discussion is really going 
to slow down anyone who is already working on protocol docs, but it could 
prevent some people, commercial or "free spirits", from joining the community.

> Please understand that there are just some fundamental realities that any
> trademark holder (whether it's Linus, Jer, or anyone else for that matter)
> has to deal with.  The purpose of a trademark is to provide a consumer with
> confidence in a product.  As such, the law compels the trademark owner to
> insure commercial product offerings aren't confused with one another.
> There's already some confusion between who and what is Jabber and what we
> have to do is clarify things.  We've looked at a lot of options and think
> that we can do the right things for everyone concerned with the proper
> licensing.
>
> So, I think what we're going to do at the Foundation should be pretty
> exciting.  As Iain has suggested, what we're looking forward to doing is to
> come up with a kind of "Jabber Inside" mark that everyone can use ("Got
> Jabber?" :).  You'd only have to go to the Jabber Foundation to get the
> mark.  If we can all rally around something cool, we should all benefit.
> There's already a great deal of brand recognition for Jabber.  We
> collectively don't want to dilute it, much less lose it.  In fact, we
> should want to do everything we can to strenghten it.  If we don't protect
> it, we lose it.
>
Too many ambiguous "we"'s in that lot for me ;-) I have no idea from one 
sentence to the next whether "we" refers to Jabber.com, the Foundation or the 
Community.

> A little background.  Apparently, the original trademark owner was going to
> serve a cease-and-desist on Jer et. al. to stop using Jabber.  Jabber.com
> bought the trademark and prevented that.  So, I think jabber.com has
> established a track record of trying to do what's right with respect to the
> use of Jabber.  We're going to work things out where the "non-commercial"
> open source community will be able to use Jabber freely, but in a way that
> helps the protect the quality of the brand.
>
Call me a low down skeptic, but I cannot imagine that you bought the 
trademark for the good of the community. Jabber is a great name, but I could 
have lived with a different one if it meant that it wasn't controlled by a 
single commercial entity. Come to that, I could still live with a different 
name if it benefits the "whole" community. BTW, two wrongs don't make a 
right. If you also start issuing cease and desists to others then you're no 
better than the first guy.

Thanks for the "free for non-commercial use" bit though. For all the 
previous ambiguity I now have a very clear understanding of your definition 
of "open". Basically, you just don't get it. Ya might think ya do, but ya 
don't!! Freedom means anyone gets to play, commercial or otherwise. I cannot 
stress this enough; the problem isn't one of open source versus commercial. 
It's one of a "single" controlling commercial entity. I don't care if there 
are a few bad apples in the commercial barrel. I'm more interested in the, 
hopefully, dozens of others who are doing a good job and taking Jabber to the 
masses. If Jabber.com, or even the Foundation, controls strict access to who 
can and cannot use the "J" word, then that will be totally detrimental to 
Jabber as a whole and impede, perhaps even prevent, its uptake. Jabber has 
got this far because it wasn't controlled. I can only guess that some members 
of the community might never have participated in the first place if the 
current concerns had been in place from the start.

> In the end, the number one concern is maintaining the highest quality
> standards possible.  It can be argued that yes, even the image of Linux has
> been tarnished because of some Linux-related failures.
And I certainly would argue with that point. Linux is thriving, whether 
certain "Linux" companies succeed or fail. Now, whether Linux itself would 
have succeeded if Linus had strictly controlled which commercial entities 
could and could not use "Linux" in their name is not in doubt, IMHO. It 
wouldn't have. Neither would email or http or html or any other 
application/protocol that we take for granted today. Leave Jabber alone and 
it will succeed. Try to control Jabber and some other protocol will take its 
place. In case you haven't noticed, there are other projects and standards 
out there, very similar to Jabber. Jabber is still "in the lead", but that 
won't last for long if you hold it back in ANY way.

> You kind of don't
> want "fly-by-night" giving your efforts a black eye.  So, we'll need to
> manage the mark a little more like Apache, or Java, I think.  This does
> have an impact on what people can use for product and company names but f
> you have specific questions about commercial use, you should contact me
> directly.
>
The last sentence sums up the problem. People shouldn't have to contact 
anyone in order to be able to spread the word!

And so endeth the lesson. But was the congregation listening??

Cheers,
Sean

-- 
Sean McGlynn
sean at tmiau.com