They've also unfairly appropriated the name "Markdown" and declared it "Standard", which Gruber is (rightly) not too happy with.[0][1]
On the other hand, he created something. He released it to the wild, and then he didn't aptly respond to the need for it to change. His response to "Markdown needs work" is basically "Whatever! It's my project, you're not the boss of me!" How can he seriously be shocked that people would go around him to try and develop a spec that made more sense?
As to using "Standard" in the name, if Reddit, StackExchange, and Github all agree to use this Markdown spec, I think that there could be a reasonable argument that it is standard. In reality, they are wrestling ownership of Markdown away from Gruber. In a couple of years Gruber's Markdown will probably only be useful for historical purposes. Why? Because he failed to respond to the real needs of his users, so those users with the largest stake took matters into their own hands.
There's nothing wrong with making a standard, just don't appropriate the name.
Markdown-related projects have been using "Markdown" in the name for years (in violation of the license). Gruber has yet to get upset at "Github flavored Markdown" or "MultiMarkdown" for example. Methinks that it has less to do with the name, and more to do with their motive of becoming the new de facto Markdown spec that has Gruber up-in-arms.
"github flavored markdown" sounds like a fork.
"standard markdown" sounds like ownership. Not
my project but shitty
That. Exactly that.
If you're going to paste the very same argument multiple times all over this discussion, you should at least first make sure it is correct.
It's been explained several times now that this is not how that license works. It doesn't work (not binding) to specify trademark-related things in a copyright license. And anyway a copyright license only affects those bound by the copyright on the work: The work, being the code of Gruber's perl markdown parser. Which this group hasn't used at all. Usage of the name "Markdown" is something which has nothing to do with copyright but trademark law. Trademark law works very differently, definitely not by just writing up a license (like copyright) and simply said: The name Markdown is not trademarked (currently, and given its usage, also probably not in the future).
Naming conventions specified in the software license don't apply to 1) non-software works such as a spec or 2) independently derived software works.
There's a great deal else concerning copyright/trademark confusion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8271548
So, is it the use of "Standard" or "Markdown" that's the issue here? I don't see people complaining that "MultiMarkdown" is appropriating the name, for example.
Imagine if you forked GTK and named it "Official GTK" and then blamed GTK for not doing what you wanted them to, so its obviously their fault that you needed to steal their name.
Standard Markdown is just that, it's Markdown but standardized. It's exactly the right name given what it does.
Some names are descriptive, some are prescriptive. Just deal with it.
Yeah, it was a slightly different situation, but still, there was a name collision and in the end nothing was ever done about it.
Google didn't appropriate the syntax or standard for the original Go, they just used the same (extremely common) two letter word.
And I don't really see the problem there, there are a multitude of hobby and dead languages with names that may be duplicated in the future.
And I don't really see the problem there
And that is the problem. People don't care about somebody just coming along and arbitrarily usurping a name somebody else is already using. Of course they may see it differently one day when the shoe is on the other foot. But for now, there seems to be a trend where people don't care about resolving name collisions... and even more so if they're a rich entity like Google or Apple.
Some background here for those interested: http://daemonforums.org/showthread.php?t=6563
The resulting legal battle came to be known as "the UNIX wars", and resulted in a legal finding that AT&T had little to no effective copyright ownership of the BSD codebase (a few minor files IIRC). This decision was issued under seal, later broken in the subsequent SCO vs. IBM lawsuit of the early 2000s.
The contretemps has been argued as among the reasons Linux emerged and became as popular as it is: it was a de novo, fully independent, largely POSIX-compliant reimplementation of the UNIX environment that was good enough for those who wanted that sort of thing.
That'd totally suck, wouldn't it?
Honestly, I'm of the opinion that they can call it Standard Markdown if they want to and there's nothing wrong with that. Gruber's opinion is worth something for sure because of his authorship of the original, but there's a statute of limitations. He doesn't think Markdown needs anything more than his Perl script, but the rest of the internet has disagreed pretty strongly for long enough now that it's fine to treat him as absentee.
I don't really see this as a valid comparison to what the folks behind "Standard Markdown" are doing. I agree with others that the Standard Markdown name was a poor choice. For me at least, it feels like they are saying "We're taking over now". I don't know if that indeed was their intent, but that's the way it comes across to me. I think they should choose a different name.
For the record, I really don't have any skin in the game here, as the controversy doesn't really affect me much.
Which the "non-profit national standards committee" is just a collection of folks representing firms in the industries to which the standards apply.
They could have called it any number of other things that don't make the same claims that "Standard Markdown" does. Off the top of my head; Common Markdown, Clean Markdown, or better yet don't actually use the Markdown name, simply imply it such as Forkdown or Sporkdown.
It would be best if the team would just go another route entirely.
To be honest, I think this industry wide devotion to Markdown is hilarious, since to me it's a pretty garbage way of solving an easily solved problem. The main/only thing in its favor is its ubiquity.
Whatever you may think of Markdown (that is markdown as created by Gruber), it surely isn't unreasonable to suggest that if any version can make that sort of claim, it should be the original.
Out of curiosity, what do you think is the better "easy" solution to the problem Markdown is trying to solve?
(btw I'm in the camp that thinks "Standard Markdown" is just fine, though I do hope they get the formal specs nailed down a bit more solidly on the ambiguities discussed upthreads, preferably with some kind of formal grammar)
I hear this sentiment a lot but I just find it unconvincing.
Over the past decade, Markdown became the lingua franca for transforming plain text to HTML. It did this entirely on the back of Gruber's spec, implementation, and the community that developed around the project. It hasn't had a formal spec this entire time and it's done just fine.
Are there some undefined behaviors in the original spec? Sure. But it was just designed to handle the most common situations, not everything.
Reading Atwoods issues with original Markdown[1] (which is significant given his extensive experience in products that rely heavily on Markdown), it is quite clear that Markdown as a format has prospered almost in spite of the original specification.
If he wants to be grumpy, cool. GH, SO, and Reddit will forge on. If we wants to litigate, cool too; bring it on.
Those 3 communities have large overlapping userbases. This baby is being born, Gruber or not, and nobody will remember in n years about the current kerfuffle.
Which I think is good. Long overdue, maybe even.
It's good something like Markdown exists, and it shouldn't have had to flourish despite not having an unambiguous formalized spec.
> If we wants to litigate, cool too; bring it on.
He's got nothing to litigate about. The trademark claim on "Markdown" had no place in his copyright license, nor does that copyright license affect this specifications project in any meaningful way (because they don't use the copyrighted work).
That's why the only valid argument so far has been over the implications of the word "Standard" in "Standard Markdown" being a "dick move" (which is a personal POV, which is fine, which I also happen to disagree with).
That would be a quick way to shut it down. Just threaten to sue anybody who _implements_ it.
Hell, just look at C compilers!