22 Jul
2026
22 Jul
'26
6:33 p.m.
On Tue, Jul 21, 2026, at 7:25 AM, Georg Lukas wrote:
Hello,
* Guus der Kinderen <guus.der.kinderen(a)gmail.com> [2026-07-17 17:32]:
Once again, I will reiterate that you can call the network JABBER without any licenses:
###
In any reference to JABBER that merely refers to it as an instant messaging and presence
technology or XML streaming technology (e.g., in software documentation), the use of the
“®” symbol is requested, but not required. It is not necessary to obtain or hold a
trademark license to refer to the name of the technology. This type of use is called
“descriptive use” under the trademark laws and requires no license.
https://xmpp.org/about/xsf/jabber-trademark/usage-guidelines/ §1.2
###
I wish folks here would read the documentation we created 20+ years ago to explain all of
this!!
Licenses are required for company names, software names, etc. But we've received only
a three license requests over the last 15 years after the initial flood of requests in
2004-2006:
https://xmpp.org/about/xsf/jabber-trademark/approved-applications/
Georg, I realize two of those three applications were from you, so this is something you
care about. But IMHO we need to look realistically at the costs and benefits of migrating
the sublicensing program to the EU along with other XSF assets and commitments.
Peter
Peter's suggestion (don't carry the
sublicensing authority over to XSF-EU,
and point any future applicant to Cisco directly) seems like a sensible
default to me, and it sidesteps most of this.
I can understand the direction this is heading, and that this is the
most pragmatic position.
However, as one of the long-term proponents of using "Jabber" for the
federated network and "XMPP" for the protocol, I would hope for a way to
retain our ability to issue trademark sub-licenses, or at least a "last
opportunity" window to request trademark licenses before the XSF-US
shuts down.