[Foundation] JSF == Jabber Standards Foundation?

[Matt Tucker]

Peter,

As long as we're considering name changes... :) I believe that we're now 
at the point that the word "Jabber" should be removed from the 
organization name.

  1) Jabber is a registered trademark. Jabber Inc. has said they would 
license the trademark, but there's not much of a point to that when they 
are still actively using it for business purposes. Sponsors have a much 
lower incentive to give to the organization when its very name promotes 
a competitor. Besides, Jabber Inc. has invested a lot into their brand 
and they deserve to keep and use it.

  2) XMPP is the term that *everyone* will soon be using. This is due to 
point #1 above, and also because XMPP will be the official name of the 
protocol. Trying to make the distinction between Jabber and XMPP is very 
confusing and I think having the word "Jabber" as part of our name 
lowers our effectiveness with the outside world.

 From what I understand, the IETF might not look kindly on using XMPP as 
part of an organization name. Therefore, I'd propose using something 
more generic such as "Open IM Foundation".

So, bring on the flames. I know "Jabber" has a very important place in 
the community's history and I don't mean to denegrate that. However, our 
true mission is to lead the adoption of the open IM protocol XMPP, and I 
think we could best do that with a more radical name change.

Regards,
Matt

P.S. -- I don't expect very much initial traction with this idea, so 
agree that Jabber Standards Foundation is at least a good step in the 
right direction. :)

Peter Saint-Andre wrote:

> Since we haven't had a good controversy on this list in at least a week,
> I figured I'd stir things up again. As you may know, Tony Bamonti and I
> have been working to recruit sponsors for the JSF. When we describe what
> the JSF does, sponsors (as well as journalists and the general public) 
> often find it confusing that we're the Jabber Software Foundation but 
> we don't create or distribute software (in the way that, say, the Apache
> Software Foundation does). Instead, what the JSF does is manage and 
> promote the Jabber protocol, thus setting standards for use by the 
> Jabber community. So I'm thinking it might be easier to communicate our 
> mission if JSF stood for "Jabber Standards Foundation".
> 
> Thoughts?
> 
> Peter
>