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Jabber is Confusing

Sat, 20/09/2008 - 02:41 — sander
Ladybug on grass
Credit: nutmeg66, License: by-nc-nd

'Jabber' is confusing, not only for Aunt Tilly, but even for geeks:

Cisco announced today that it has acquired Jabber, an open-source IM and presence protocol used by Google Talk and Gizmo, for an undisclosed sum.

Cisco didn’t get ‘Jabber.org’ the open-source server on the XMPP protocol,[..].

Jabber is an application that we use throughout our office and is one helluva an IM.

Any news on keeping Jabber Open source?

Solution

Being devoted to a very friendly user experience in Coccinella, we decided a long time ago to progressively drop all references to 'Jabber'. For instance, whereas Coccinella formerly was described as a 'Jabber client', we do now talk about 'instant messaging client', optionally adding 'using the open standard XMPP protocol' for geeks. Even the JabberLib library is being rewritten from scratch. The long-term goal of this marketing decision is to kill the confusion barrier.

Story type: 
Development
Sander's blog

Comments

Sat, 20/09/2008 - 09:00 — sander

It seems Slashdot nerds are also confused:

I'm sure the question many of us have is whether Jabber's open source status will be changed in any way due to the purchase.

I think the real question is not whether Jabber's open-source status will be impacted, but whether Cisco will try to be all redactive and decide that the open source licensing of current and previous versions of jabber [..]

But what if Cisco starts closing down the source?

Just tell me, how would Joe Six-pack ever understand 'Jabber' when even technical minded people have troubles with the concept? You can't sell anything to people which they don't understand. World domination of XMPP technology needs a simple and clear name in the first place, and 'Jabber' is definitely not that name.

Will be continued...

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