[Foundation] Jabber (tm)

Fri May 18 11:19:14 CDT 2001

Agreed.  However, it must always be close in the minds of the Foundation
that at any time, Jabber.com could revoke ALL of this use (if I understand
trademarks correctly.. which I could quite possibly NOT be doing :) )

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Peter Saint-Andre [mailto:stpeter at jabber.org]
> Sent: Friday, May 18, 2001 10:19 AM
> To: members at jabber.org
> Subject: Re: [Foundation] Jabber (tm)
> 
> 
> Hi Piers,
> 
> My understanding is that Joe Developer would be able name his program 
> Jabber* (such as Jabbernaut or whatever) as long as it's not a 
> commercial product. If you had a commercial product, or even if you 
> didn't, you could still associate your product with Jabber in other 
> ways, for example as Gabber has done. I'm not sure that such 
> a solution 
> will please everyone, but it's better than renaming the protocol to 
> something totally different like IMTP or PIXI or whatever.
> 
> Peter
> 
> Piers Harding wrote:
> 
> > Firstly: Losing the name "Jabber" to the protocol would be 
> disastrous - and for me I would probably lose interest and 
> walk away from the community if it happened.
> > 
> > Secondly: I think the greatest worry of producing a product 
> based on Jabber is making a clear link/brand association with 
> Jabber, if you cannot use Jabber in the name.  Not being able 
> to easily make that connection seems to me to be pivotal.
> > 
> > Jer has crystalised the position of jabber.com, and I 
> believe that they are "trying to do the right thing", but if 
> we are to take away the ability of Joe average developer 
> trying to establish his product through name association, 
> then we have to compensate for that with another mechanism.  
> Maybe a jabber commercial portal - an adaption of 
> jabbercentral.com, that provides a vehicle for product 
> promotion to go with product certification that has been 
> previously mentioned?  The key would be to make the entry 
> barrier free, or at least very cheap, and thus accessible to everyone.
> > 
> > Cheers.
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > On Thu, May 17, 2001 at 03:09:01PM -0500, Jeremie wrote:
> > 
> >>/me chimes in :)
> >>
> >>On Wed, 16 May 2001, Mathew Johnston wrote:
> >>
> >>>First, some history. A company that did some sort of voice software
> >>>had a trademark on the word Jabber (or something involving 
> that word).
> >>>They threatened Jer with a cease and desist when he 
> started using the
> >>>word Jabber to describe his new XML based protocol that 
> would be used
> >>>for IM and more. Jer had already used the name a fair bit and the
> >>>Jabber protocol that he had started became more popular. He didn't
> >>>have money to fight in court with or buy the trademark 
> from the other
> >>>company. Jabber.com, however, did. So, they bought the trademark.
> >>>
> >>Just to clarify things a bit, the original company was Oquirrh
> >>Technologies Inc. from NY.  They had the domain jabber.com 
> and a trademark
> >>on jabber for "computer software for reducing the number of 
> bits required
> >>to transmit speech" and some java classes that did such 
> voice compression.
> >>I never received a cease and desist, and IANAL, but I'm not sure how
> >>applicable it would have been given the specific usage of 
> the trademark by
> >>Oquirrh.  Essentially, Jabber.com came into existence by 
> purchasing the
> >>domain and trademark from Oquirrh, and has since then filed 
> their own
> >>trademark on jabber for "Software for real-time 
> communications over a
> >>global computer network."
> >>
> >>On Thu, 17 May 2001, Thomas Charron wrote:
> >>
> >>>    Jabber.com may not be ABLE to do this.  Rememeber, 
> trademarks have
> >>>monatary value.  They are a publically held company.  
> Start giving stuff
> >>>away, and you quickly find yourself in the midst of lawsuites by
> >>>shareholders.  'Specially when dealing with smaller 
> companies who are in
> >>>tough spots right now..
> >>>
> >>Another clarification, Jabber.com is not a publicly held 
> company, they
> >>are private, but largely owned by a public company (WEBB).
> >>
> >>My thought yesterday was, would it be acceptable for 
> Jabber.com to assign
> >>the trademark to the foundation, and in turn the foundation 
> would license
> >>the commercial use of the name "jabber" as used by 
> Jabber.com in it's
> >>domain and product names?  The reasoning behind this is 
> that Jabber.com
> >>has said that they have not and do not plan on using the 
> trademark as a
> >>direct source of income, so the discussion around the 
> immediate financial
> >>value of the trademark to jabber.com doesn't make as much sense.  
> >>Instead, they want to ensure the brand and quality, and be able to
> >>distinguish their products uniquely in the marketplace as 
> representing
> >>that brand and quality.  They were the first entity to 
> seriously pursue
> >>offering commercial services around Jabber and have 
> definitely benefited
> >>the community by creating those offerings for other businesses. In
> >>addition they have been honest in their support of the 
> community and being
> >>an open participant and not trying to direct or control it.
> >>
> >>So, as far as I currently understand the situation, with a 
> transfer and
> >>commercial use license exchange, Jabber.com can see their 
> vision of proper
> >>brand and quality management happen through the foundation, 
> as well as
> >>retain the commercial value that they have worked hard for 
> and deserve by
> >>using Jabber in their product names.  This is the highest level of
> >>protection for the community as well, and will allow the 
> name "jabber" to
> >>co-exist peacefully in the various usages as a protocol, open source
> >>software, and product names.
> >>
> >>I guess the next step is to see if it's something that 
> Jabber.com would
> >>find acceptible or if there were additional facets to the 
> problem not
> >>taken into account.  There's quite a bit of work to be done on many
> >>fronts, so I hope we can work through this quickly and get 
> back to the
> >>problems of growing the community and making things work better :)
> >>
> >>Jer
> >>
> >>
> >>_______________________________________________
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> >>
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> > 
> > .
> > 
> > 
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Peter Saint-Andre
> stpeter at jabber.org
> 
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