- Members - XMPP

Compiling a list of questions for legal counsel
by Guus der Kinderen 10 Sep '26

10 Sep '26

Dear members, Following on from the trademark decisions: the Board has repeatedly concluded that particular questions require legal confirmation, without ever establishing what those questions actually are. That gap is why matters keep returning unresolved. So, before deciding whether to seek counsel (and at what cost) it would be useful to compile a list of specific questions. I've started one here: https://wiki.xmpp.org/web/Legal_Questions:_Jabber_Trademark_and_XSF_Legal_S… It's prepopulated with the questions raised so far, covering the status of the sublicensing programme, existing licence holders, the XSF's own use of the mark, a successor entity, and whether approaching Cisco itself changes anything. Please add to it. Questions, better wording for existing ones, or notes where something is already answered are all very welcome. If you're unsure whether something belongs, add it: narrowing the list later is easier than remembering what got left out. This is open to anyone with relevant expertise, member or not. Several people have offered help at various points. That offer is very much still wanted. The Board will pick this up at the meeting on 24 September, with a view to deciding then whether to instruct counsel. Kind regards, Guus

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Board decisions on the Jabber trademark sublicensing programme
by Guus der Kinderen 10 Sep '26

10 Sep '26

Dear members, The Board met today and resolved: The XSF will not carry sublicensing authority to any successor entity. Existing licences are unaffected. The Board makes no determination today about the legal basis of the programme, which remains subject to advice. This carried unanimously among those present. The Board also agreed to keep processing applications for now (not a pause, but two of us framed this as pending legal confirmation, which we don't yet have); to ask Cisco to recognise a successor entity in respect of the XSF's own use of the mark, kept separate from the sublicensing question; to annotate the public pages rather than remove them; and to get trademark(a)xmpp.org fixed, which currently bounces. Ge0rG: that answers your earlier requests: an application would be welcome now, subject to that caveat. Minutes: https://wiki.xmpp.org/web/Board-Meeting-2026-09-10#Minutes I'll follow up separately on the legal questions. Kind regards, Guus

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Agenda for the XSF Board Meeting on September 10 2026
by Guus der Kinderen 10 Sep '26

10 Sep '26

Dear Board members, This email announces the agenda for our next Board meeting, scheduled for Thursday, 10 September 2026, from 16:00 to 16:30 UTC. The meeting will take place in the XSF chatroom at xmpp:xsf@muc.xmpp.org?join. I'm aware that the agenda below uses plenty of markup, which may affect rendering. The same agenda is available on the XSF wiki, which may be helpful in case your mail client does not render this email as intended: https://wiki.xmpp.org/web/Board-Meeting-2026-09-10#Agenda Please review the relevant materials ahead of the meeting so that we can use our time efficiently. Kind regards, Guus 1. *Welcome*Opening of the meeting. Roll call and confirmation of quorum. 2. *Formalize Agenda**Recommendation*: A1 as the substantive item, with A2 and A3 as short items. Section C assignments to be confirmed by name before close. Items not selected are deferred, not dropped. Section A - recommended for today *A1. Jabber Trademark: separate the questions* *(20 min - decision)*The 27 August discussion did not conclude. It repeatedly collapsed three distinct questions into one. Ralph set them out as: 1. Does the sublicensing programme, in its current form, exist? 2. If so, does the XSF want to continue it? 3. What happens to it if the XSF changes domicile, or winds down? Ralph also noted (and dwd agreed) that these need not be approached together. A request that Cisco recognise a successor entity concerns the XSF's own use of the Mark, which Ralph noted is not in question today, and need not mention the sublicensing programme at all. The two approaches can be made separately, or one without the other. *Positions stated on 27 August* - *Mickaël*: wind the programme down; it is not wise to take new applicants. - *Ralph*: the programme does exist - it continued well beyond the trial with JINC's awareness, and it is the trademark holder's duty to know. Separately, contacting Cisco about successor recognition is low-risk and need not raise the programme. - *Guus*: reluctant to act as though a fully functional programme exists given the documentation gap; asking Cisco and letting their answer drive the decision is acceptable. - From the floor, dwd: without contacting Cisco the programme probably has to be shuttered; with contact, either answer gives clarity. *Decisions sought* 1. Whether to decouple the successor-entity request from the sublicensing question, per Ralph and dwd. 2. On question 2 above - does the XSF want to continue the programme at all? Mickaël has proposed it should not. This is answerable today and does not depend on legal advice. 3. Whether new applications are issued while the programme's status is disputed. Ge0rG has indicated he intends to apply, for a non-commercial hosting collective, and asked for a grace period before Cisco is contacted. Guus questioned whether the XSF should issue anything under a programme in this state. 4. Whether to suspend or annotate the public sublicensing pages pending the above. *Not for decision today* - Whether an oral or implied agreement can extend or override the written License Agreement. This was argued at length on 27 August without resolution and none of the Board are lawyers. See A2. *Status of actions from 27 August* - Mickaël agreed to contact Joe Hildebrand via LinkedIn, with Ralph copied, on the history of the arrangement - including whether the programme came up at the time of the JSF-to-XSF name change. Status? *A2. Legal questions: assemble the list* *(10 min - decision)* No agreement was reached on 27 August about obtaining legal advice. Guus observed that the legal arguments in the meeting were not helping and that none of those present are lawyers; Ralph did not consider the discussion disruptive in itself. From the floor, it was suggested a trademark lawyer would be needed before contacting Cisco. Ralph confirmed the XSF has members who are lawyers but does not currently retain any. Before the Board can decide whether to seek counsel, it needs to know what it would ask. No such list exists. This item is about producing one; the decision on counsel follows. *Known questions, as a starting point* - Does the sublicensing authority survive the absence of documentation extending the twelve-month trial? - Can continued execution with the trademark holder's awareness affect the written terms? - What is the status of existing sublicense holders if the programme is discontinued? - Can the arrangement, or the XSF's obligations under it, transfer to a successor entity? - If the programme is discontinued, does anything in the existing agreements prevent the XSF, or a successor entity, from seeking a new sublicensing arrangement later? - Does the XSF's own license to use the Mark survive the JSF-to-XSF name change and the Cisco acquisition, and on what terms? - Does contacting Cisco itself change the legal position, as was suggested from the floor? *Decisions sought* 1. Who drafts the consolidated list, and by when. 2. Whether EU-transition questions are bundled with the trademark ones or kept separate. 3. Whether to ask Matija Šuklje to help frame the questions. He offered assistance on standards@ in May and was explicit he cannot provide Legal Advice - which makes scoping an appropriate use of the offer. See also C2. *A3. EU Legal Structure: self-assessments have stalled* *(5 min - decision)*Not reached on 27 August. The Board agreed on 18 June that authors would self-assess "before a date to be communicated". The call went out on 4 June; no date was ever communicated, and no self-assessment has been posted to members@ in the three months since. *Decisions sought* 1. A firm deadline. 2. Whether to contact the proposal authors directly rather than via the list. 3. What happens to proposals whose authors do not respond - Board-prepared assessment, or drop from consideration. Wiki page: https://wiki.xmpp.org/web/XSF_EU_Legal_Transition_Proposal Section B - candidate items, deferred unless promoted *B1. Volunteer capacity* *(15 min - discussion)*Deferred from 2026-08-27. Guus wrote on standards@ in July that the volunteering force is one of the XSF's most valuable assets, that the XSF has not historically done well at preventing burnout among those volunteers, and that it needs to do better. Two signals from that discussion bear on this directly: - Goffi described himself as "already at the edge of burn-out" and declined additional work on that basis. - Goffi reported, and Kev independently described, that the Editor has indicated he could not continue in the role if the volume of low-quality submissions rises. Neither account is a first-hand statement, and neither was contested on the list. The XSF's volunteer force is not within the Council's remit. This item exists because no other body owns it. *For discussion* 1. What concrete support the Editor and Council need, and whether the Board can supply or fund it. 2. Whether the Editor function has sufficient redundancy. 3. Whether the Board should adopt any ongoing practice for noticing volunteer load before it becomes attrition. *B2. IPR policy: warranty, copyright, and AI-assisted contributions* *(20 min - decision)*Deferred from 2026-08-27. Goffi has asked three times whether this belongs with the Board - twice in May, and again in July, when he asked whether the discussion should continue on standards@ or whether the Board should take it up and ask a team to work on an XSF statement on AI use. That question remains unanswered. Guus, as a Board member, twice replied that the matter was not yet ready, and set out what would change that: a concrete proposal with prior art behind it. The prior-art survey is now complete. Whether a concrete proposal exists is for the Board to judge. *The narrow question* Marvin argued on standards@ that AI-generated content cannot comply with the IPR policy as written: §3.1 requires the author to assign ownership they may not hold, and §4 requires a copyright notice that may be invalid. Dave argued the warranty model already indemnifies the XSF, since the author asserts they can assign and the XSF accepts in good faith. *Alternatives raised* - Retain the current policy unchanged. - Adopt submitter wording along the lines Dave proposed: an assertion and warranty that, to the extent copyright exists in the contribution, the submitter has permission from all rights holders to assign it, and does so. - Adopt a matching qualification in Appendix C. Dave himself was unsure this is necessary, on the basis that publishing a submission likely suffices. - Disclaim copyright in XEPs entirely and require submissions to do the same. Reported by Dave as a position Peter has argued previously; not stated by Peter in this thread. *Decisions sought* 1. Whether the current IPR policy is adequate as written, or is to be opened. 2. If opened, which direction, and who drafts. 3. Whether any XSF-wide statement is commissioned beyond Council's XEP-0143 work, and a reply to Goffi either way. *Scope note*: author-facing guidance belongs in XEP-0143 and is Council's. PR #1552 is with Council, where revised wording was proposed at the most recent Council meeting. The Board should not duplicate that work. Mailing list thread: https://mail.jabber.org/hyperkitty/list/standards@xmpp.org/thread/TEATGPR45… Prior art: https://wiki.xmpp.org/web/AI_contribution_policies_in_other_projects XEP-0143 PR #1552: https://github.com/xsf/xeps/pull/1552 Section C - assignments *Listed on 2026-08-27 but not confirmed. To be read out and owners named before close.* *C1. Role address audit.*trademark(a)xmpp.org has been reported bouncing since June; no sublicense application can be filed while it is broken. The Board agreed on 18 June that this should be addressed; it appears not to have been. The CoC also publishes no contact address for the Board or conduct team. Confirm every XSF role address is monitored and published. *Owner: TBD* *C2. Counsel enquiry.*Peter offered in July to raise the question of counsel on the open-source foundations list. Confirm status. Feeds A2. *Owner: TBD* *C3. Historical enquiry: Joe Hildebrand.*Agreed 2026-08-27. Ralph to be copied. *Owner: Mickaël* Standing items 3. *Any Other Business (AOB)* *(3 min)* - *XMPP Summit 30*: Announced by SCAM at the end of Summit 29. 28-29 January 2027 in Brussels, preceding FOSDEM (as per usual): https://wiki.xmpp.org/web/Conferences/Summit_30 4. *Date of next meeting* *(2 min)*Proposed: Thursday, 24 September 2026, at the usual time, resuming the fortnightly cadence. 5. *Close*

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voting results & meeting minutes
by Alexander Gnauck 03 Sep '26

03 Sep '26

Hello, you can find the meeting minutes here: https://wiki.xmpp.org/web/Meeting-Minutes-2026-09-03 All reappliers were accepted. I will open the Q4 application period ASAP. Also our annual board and council elections are upcoming. I will work on a schedule for this soon. Thanks, Alex

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XMPP Summit 29 (Friday + Saturday)
by Daniel Gultsch 03 Sep '26

03 Sep '26

Hi all, the 29th XMPP Summit is coming up in a little over 24 hours. Friday and Saturday from 13:00-16:00 UTC. This is our first online summit and is hosted on a Big Blue Button server provided to us by the FSFE. https://conf.fsfe.org/b/mkw-hvi-ujx-kb7 This is your last chance to propose some topics on our wiki. https://wiki.xmpp.org/web/Conferences/Summit_29#Proposed_Topics We will be voting on the 4 topics that we are going to be discussing very early in our Friday time slot. So be on time and do get familiar with the topics beforehand. On time means 20 minutes early! The room will be open and we will be having some nice hallway discussions. cheers Daniel

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voting update
by Alexander Gnauck 01 Sep '26

01 Sep '26

According to my records the following XSF members have voted via proxy in the current voting period: * daniel (at) gultsch.de * jabber (at) larma.de * kevin.smith (at) isode.com * polarian (at) icebound.dev * travis (at) burtrum.org * dele.olajide (at) igniterealtime.org * daniel (at) spacecloud.one * mario (at) sabatino.pro * nicoco (at) nicoco.fr * jonas (at) wielicki.name * georg (at) yax.im * gnauck (at) conversations.im If you have not yet voted, please send a message to xmpp:memberbot@xmpp.org. If you have problems with memberbot please contact me directly by email or xmpp. Thanks, Alex

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Agenda for the XSF Board Meeting on August 27 2026
by Guus der Kinderen 27 Aug '26

27 Aug '26

Dear Board members, This email announces the agenda for our next Board meeting, scheduled for Thursday, 27 August 2026, from 16:00 to 16:30 UTC. The meeting will take place in the XSF chatroom at xmpp:xsf@muc.xmpp.org?join. Three consecutive meetings did not proceed (2026-07-02 opened but deferred its only substantive item; 2026-07-16 and 2026-08-13 were cancelled). This agenda therefore presents a candidate list of outstanding items rather than a fixed agenda. The Board selects from it under item 2. Items not selected are recorded as deferred in the minutes and carry forward to the next meeting. I'm aware that the agenda below uses plenty of markup, which may affect rendering. The same agenda is available on the XSF wiki, which may be helpful in case your mail client does not render this email as intended: https://wiki.xmpp.org/web/Board-Meeting-2026-08-271. *Welcome*Opening of the meeting. Roll call and confirmation of quorum. 2. *Formalize Agenda*The Board selects which of the candidate items below will be taken today. Given the 30-minute slot, realistically two. *Recommendation*: items A1 and A2, on the basis that A1 is now decidable and A2 costs almost nothing. Items under section C are assignments requiring no meeting time and can be confirmed without discussion. Any Board member may promote an item from B or C into today's agenda, or add an item not listed. Absent objection, the recommendation stands. Items not selected are deferred, not dropped. The minutes will record the deferred set. Section A - recommended for today *A1. Jabber Trademark Sublicensing Program* *(20 min - decision)*Deferred from 2026-07-02 pending community feedback. That feedback arrived: the discussion ran on members@ through July and has since concluded. *What changed* - The full Enforcement Agreement, including Exhibit A (the Jabber Trademark Position Statement), is now published on the XSF website. Exhibit A previously went unnoticed - Read as a set, the documents show the administration arrangement the XSF operates was structured as a twelve-month trial, ending either in transfer of the Mark to the JSF or in reversion of administration to JINC. The Mark was never transferred. - Peter Saint-Andre confirms the arrangement was extended in practice, that he holds no documentation of the extension, and that he found nothing further in his own files. - The License Agreement §5 expressly prohibits sublicensing by the JSF. *Positions raised* - *Peter*: do not carry sublicensing authority to a successor EU entity; future applicants license directly with Cisco. Notes that requests have been very rare since the initial flood in 2004-2006. - *Ralph*: existing licenses are perpetual subject to good conduct; cleanest route to certainty is a letter from Cisco recognising the new entity as successor. - *Georg*: in order of preference: (1) retain a stub XSF-US to issue sublicenses; (2) wind down with a final registration window; (3) plain wind-down. Notes Cisco recently renewed the mark and still ships Jabber-branded products. - *Jonas*, as a license holder: clarify the status of existing uses before XSF-US winds down; if it cannot be clarified, holders must be told to seek Cisco's blessing. - *Travis*: stop advertising the program immediately. *Decisions sought* 1. Whether sublicensing authority will be carried over to a successor entity. 2. Whether to commit to a notification process for existing holders, and on what timeline. 3. Whether to suspend or annotate the public sublicensing pages pending (1). *Dependency*: no application can be filed while trademark(a)xmpp.org is bouncing. See C1. Background: https://xmpp.org/about/xsf/jabber-trademark/background/ Approved applications: https://xmpp.org/about/xsf/jabber-trademark/approved-applications/ Mailing list thread: https://mail.jabber.org/hyperkitty/list/members@xmpp.org/message/AXQGRXYXSK… *A2. EU Legal Structure: self-assessments have stalled* *(5 min - decision)*The Board agreed on 18 June that authors would self-assess "before a date to be communicated". The call went out on 4 June; no date was ever communicated. Nearly three months on, no self-assessment has been posted to members@. *Decisions sought* 1. A firm deadline. 2. Whether to contact the proposal authors directly rather than via the list. 3. What happens to proposals whose authors do not respond - Board-prepared assessment, or drop from consideration. Wiki page: https://wiki.xmpp.org/web/XSF_EU_Legal_Transition_Proposal Mailing list thread: https://mail.jabber.org/hyperkitty/list/members@xmpp.org/message/O4RR4XQ53S… Section B - candidate items, deferred unless promoted *B1. Access to legal expertise* *(15 min - decision)*The Board recorded on 18 June that several points on the trademark programme require legal confirmation: the status of existing licensees if the programme lapses, reversibility, and any transfer to a successor entity. No advice has been obtained since. In May, on standards@, Matija Šuklje offered assistance. He specialises in IPR, specifically copyright and FOSS licensing, and co-authored the FLA. He was explicit that he is not an attorney and cannot provide Legal Advice as such, but offered his thoughts once the XSF has a rough idea what it wants to achieve. The offer was acknowledged on-list but never taken up. He remains active in the community. *Decisions sought* 1. Whether to take up the offer, and who owns the interaction. 2. The set of questions to put - spanning the trademark position, transferability of XSF obligations to a successor entity, and the IPR questions in B3. 3. Whether an informal read precedes or replaces a decision on paid counsel, and what would trigger the latter. Mailing list post: https://mail.jabber.org/hyperkitty/list/standards@xmpp.org/message/W6UUNLIP… *B2. Volunteer capacity* *(15 min - discussion)*Guus wrote on standards@ in July that the volunteering force is one of the XSF's most valuable assets, that the XSF has not historically done well at preventing burnout among those volunteers, and that it needs to do better. Two signals from that discussion bear on this directly: - Goffi described himself as "already at the edge of burn-out" and declined additional work on that basis. - Goffi reported, and Kev independently described, that the Editor has indicated he could not continue in the role if the volume of low-quality submissions rises. Neither account is a first-hand statement, and neither was contested on the list. The XSF's volunteer force is not within the Council's remit. This item exists because no other body owns it. *For discussion* 1. What concrete support the Editor and Council need, and whether the Board can supply or fund it. 2. Whether the Editor function has sufficient redundancy. 3. Whether the Board should adopt any ongoing practice for noticing volunteer load before it becomes attrition. *B3. IPR policy: warranty, copyright, and AI-assisted contributions* *(20 min - decision)*Goffi has asked three times whether this belongs with the Board - twice in May, and again in July, when he asked whether the discussion should continue on standards@ or whether the Board should take it up and ask a team to work on an XSF statement on AI use. That question remains unanswered. Guus, as a Board member, twice replied that the matter was not yet ready, and set out what would change that: a concrete proposal with prior art behind it. The prior-art survey is now complete. Whether a concrete proposal exists is for the Board to judge. *The narrow question* Marvin argued on standards@ that AI-generated content cannot comply with the IPR policy as written: §3.1 requires the author to assign ownership they may not hold, and §4 requires a copyright notice that may be invalid. Dave argued the warranty model already indemnifies the XSF, since the author asserts they can assign and the XSF accepts in good faith. *Alternatives raised* - Retain the current policy unchanged. - Adopt submitter wording along the lines Dave proposed: an assertion and warranty that, to the extent copyright exists in the contribution, the submitter has permission from all rights holders to assign it, and does so. - Adopt a matching qualification in Appendix C. Dave himself was unsure this is necessary, on the basis that publishing a submission likely suffices. - Disclaim copyright in XEPs entirely and require submissions to do the same. Reported by Dave as a position Peter has argued previously; not stated by Peter in this thread. *Decisions sought* 1. Whether the current IPR policy is adequate as written, or is to be opened. 2. If opened, which direction, and who drafts. 3. Whether any XSF-wide statement is commissioned beyond Council's XEP-0143 work, and a reply to Goffi either way. *Scope note*: author-facing guidance belongs in XEP-0143 and is Council's. PR #1552 is with Council, where revised wording was proposed at the most recent Council meeting. The Board should not duplicate that work. Mailing list thread: https://mail.jabber.org/hyperkitty/list/standards@xmpp.org/thread/TEATGPR45… Prior art: https://wiki.xmpp.org/web/AI_contribution_policies_in_other_projects XEP-0143 PR #1552: https://github.com/xsf/xeps/pull/1552 Section C - assignments, no meeting time required *Confirm owners without discussion unless someone objects.* *C1. Role address audit.*trademark(a)xmpp.org has been reported bouncing since June; no sublicense application can be filed while it is broken. The Board agreed on 18 June that this should be addressed; it appears not to have been. The CoC also publishes no contact address for the Board or conduct team. Confirm every XSF role address is monitored and published. *Owner: TBD* *C2. Counsel enquiry.*Peter offered in July to raise the question of counsel on the open-source foundations list. Status unknown; confirm. *Owner: TBD* *C3. Summit 29 topic suggestion.*Topic suggestions close today. Anyone may suggest a topic; this requires no Board decision. If any Board member wants intake reform or the role of Council discussed on 4-5 September, they should post to the list directly. Daniel has already proposed a related topic. *No Board action required - noted for awareness* Standing items 3. *Any Other Business (AOB)* *(5 min)* - *XMPP Summit 29 *: 4-5 September 2026, online - the first online-only Summit: https://wiki.xmpp.org/web/Conferences/Summit_29 4. *Date of next meeting*Proposed: Thursday, 10 September 2026, at the usual time. Note the membership meeting on 3 September and Summit 29 on 4-5 September fall before it. The Board may also wish to confirm the timeline for the annual meeting and Board and Council elections, given the current term is designated 2025-2026. 5. *Close* Please review the relevant materials ahead of the meeting so that we can use our time efficiently. Kind regards, Guus

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29th XMPP Summit
by Daniel Gultsch 19 Aug '26

19 Aug '26

Good morning the 29th XMPP Summit is fast approaching. It is our first attempt at an online only Summit and will be held on Friday 4 September and Saturday 5 September 2026. If you intent to attend please add yourself to the participants list¹. Adding yourself might also motivate others to participate itself. Please find the time to do so even if there is no "limited seating" or other constraints. We are also looking for topic suggestions. We will maintain the unconference style of offline summits (meaning participants can bring their own topics) but for time constraints we will do the topic suggestions and topic sorting ahead of time. Meaning what usually happens on the white board in the first hour of a traditional summit will now happen on list. Please go ahead and propose topics and include a short pitch. Additionally please add the topic to the wiki.² (If you someone only suggests it here I’ll try my best to add it to the wiki myself.) I will close the topic suggestion round on Thursday 27th so we will have about a week to vote on the topics. (which will determine the order of the four topics we'll be discussing during the Summit) cheers Daniel ¹: https://wiki.xmpp.org/web/Conferences/Summit_29#Participants ²: https://wiki.xmpp.org/web/Conferences/Summit_29#Proposed_Topics

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OFFICIAL MEETING ANNOUNCEMENT
by Alexander Gnauck 17 Aug '26

17 Aug '26

I've started proxy voting via xmpp:memberbot@xmpp.org on the membership applications listed here: https://wiki.xmpp.org/web/Membership_Applications_Q3_2026 We will hold a member meeting on September 3rd, 2026 to formally approve the voting results. The meeting particulars are: Date: September 3, 2026 Time: 19.00 UTC Location: xmpp:xsf@muc.xmpp.org When you have problems with memberbot please contact my directly by email or xmpp. Alex

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Membership Application period Q3 2026
by Alexander Gnauck 03 Aug '26

03 Aug '26

Hello, I have created the membership application page for Q3 2026 at: https://wiki.xmpp.org/web/Membership_Applications_Q3_2026 The following XSF members have to reapply: * Gonzalo Raúl Nemmi * Travis Burtrum * Severino Ferrer de la Peñita * Timothée Jaussoin * Trevor Krahn * Ralph Meijer * Edwin Mons * Emmanuel Gil Peyrot * Peter Saint-Andre * Holger Weiß * Gideon White * Natalie Wirth * Marvin Wissfeld Regards, Alex

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