I think what makes Org special—just like Emacs—is that it's a small system that can grow. You can customize it however you like, and it's easy to add functional

I think what makes Org special—just like Emacs—is that it's a small system that can grow. You can customize it however you like, and it's easy to add functionality on top of (or into) the core system. In practice, would standardization hinder this property? It seems like the cost of evolving org-mode would become much higher if there were a formal standard and a number of actively used implementations—we'd have to worry about backwards compatibility, inconsistencies between systems... etc. As it happens, I absolutely would love better support for org-mode workflows in other systems, especially on mobile. (I use Orgzly on Android which is fine but also limited and inflexible.) I could also see a native org-mode implementation making core operations much faster, although the EmacsGCC work is making a real improvement on that front already. But I worry that supporting that would sacrifice the very properties that let org-mode evolve into what it is and to continue evolving even now.