[Foundation] Re: Reply to ....

[David Waite]

Evan Prodromou wrote:

>So, I'm sure I'm headed for some kind of mailing list Hades for
>replying to a message that so vigorously requested 'No Replies', but I
>had a question I wanted to ask. Not necessarily of Ryan, but of the
>group at large.
>
I figure I'm safe, since you didn't say not to reply to you :-)

There is a lot of attachment to the 'Jabber' name, even though what 
Jabber -is- winds up being rather nebulous. One problem with cool names 
is they get reused too much :-)

While I haven't decided yet if I fully agree with the severity indicated 
by name conflicts, I respect that this could be a problem. I also 
believe that part of the reason for the forming of the JSF as an 
organization was to provide a clearer separation between what 'Jabber: 
the Protocol', 'Jabber: the Community' and were from 'Jabber: the 
Company' and 'Jabber: the Open-source Implementation'.

I also don't believe anyone who originally signed the petition is trying 
to stir up dissent or do anything nebulous - they just want to take part 
of the protocol and help the community while creating their own 
products, and see a serious issue with funding a standards body which 
could be perceived by its name and by the standards it produces to be 
part of one of their competators. I'm sure whether we vote yes or no on 
this issue, they will continue to use XMPP. They may very well also 
continue to participate in the community. But their future efforts will 
be affected by this issue, as they have mentioned. Given their other 
alternative was to just reduce or stop effort without saying anything, I 
think they made the proper choice by bringing forward the issue as well 
as a well-thought proposal for vote.

Jabber as an open-source project is older than Jabber, Inc - but the 
Jabber Software Foundation is very much younger. As an organization, we 
chose a name which referenced both an existing open-source effort, an 
existing community, an existing protocol, and an existing commercial 
entity.  Some of our membership think that was a poor choice, and I am 
(if nothing else) curious to see how the final vote falls.

If people can't bring constructive feedback forward (such as more 
options which might be acceptable other than changing names), I urge 
them to just wait for the vote. We have process to determine how we go 
forward; we should follow it. Nobody is wrong here; opinions just 
differ. If you can't see the opposing viewpoint after all the previous 
traffic, that is perfectly fine - you will know exactly how to vote :-)

-David Waite