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We did -- no response to the current spec after a week of waiting for a reply. A much earlier lengthy email response from Gruber around 11/2012 evaluated each

We did -- no response to the current spec after a week of waiting for a reply. A much earlier lengthy email response from Gruber around 11/2012 evaluated each of the changes Stack Overflow and GitHub made to Markdown one by one (there were some he agreed with) and essentially said "ambiguity is a feature" at the end. We disagree about that.

cnbuff410 12y ago
Go for it. Time will prove which side is correct.
MBCook 12y ago
But why use basically the same name? If you want to make a fully specified version why not give a slightly different name instead of just "Standard X"? Using (basically) the same name strikes me as somewhat hostile given the views Gruber has expressed, and likely to cause confusion to end users.
- danielweber 12y ago
  The problem is that once Gruber embraced ambiguity and encouraged lots of people to make whatever they want and call it "Markdown," it's hard to say "no, no, you can't call this one specific thing Markdown." IANAL.
  - albedoa 12y ago
    He's not telling them they can't — he's saying they shouldn't. Those are very different things.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - jfb 12y ago
    It's less like he's saying they're wrong and more like he's saying they're rude.
  - erroca 12y ago
    There's a difference between a fork (flavour), and just claiming ownership, which is what this is.
- phpnode 12y ago
  Markdown has outgrown Gruber's stewardship, "ambiguity is a feature" is not an opinion I can get behind. Calling this something other than markdown would be more confusing for end users. It is markdown, standardised.
  - jdmichal 12y ago
    > It is markdown, standardised. I would avoid this wording. I would instead say: It's a flavor of markdown. The flavor is heavily documented. The flavor's name is "Standard Markdown".
  - MBCook 12y ago
    "I don't like his position so he should lose his ownership". Lovely. My problem with the name "Standard Markdown" is I don't think it's going to be clear enough, I think people will think it's the same thing as Markdown (which it's not), under the theory that "non-standard" would have an obviously different name such as "Lisp Markdown" or "Japanese Markdown". If they had used a word other than "Markdown" I wouldn't have a single problem, I would cheer them on. I don't see a real benefit in this name to anyone, but I see serious downsides.
    - bmm6o 12y ago
      > "I don't like his position so he should lose his ownership" That's certainly an unbiased translation :rolls eyes:. If you want to have a good-faith debate, you should avoid tendentious re-writes of your interlocutor's arguments.
      - MBCook 12y ago
        > "ambiguity is a feature" is not an opinion I can get behind You clearly don't like his position. Be he has explicitly chosen not to make a specification, he's had years and numerous requests. From what I've seen/heard John Gruber likes that it isn't formalized with a spec. So if a group of people, especially a large group with 10s of millions of users (at a minimum) decides to write a spec and name it "Markdown" over Gruber's wishes it sounds like trying to take ownership from him. My phrase was glib, but I don't think it's that far off from many of the comments expressed here.
- munificent 12y ago
  > But why use basically the same name? Because it communicates the right thing to users >90% of the time. If you learn the language specified here and then go write some reddit comments or file a GitHub issue using that language, it will do what you expect. The few places where it doesn't you probably don't have an intuition about anyway. If you treat "markdown" as an improper word describing the language and not some sort of proper "brand name" that describes provenance, then what they describe here is "markdown".
  - MBCook 12y ago
    > If you learn the language specified here and then go write some reddit comments or file a GitHub issue using that language, it will do what you expect. It would do the same thing if all those groups (since they seem to be onboard) had decided to call it TextMark or CommentAscii or some other new term. As long as they all use the same term it would be fine. But instead they're basically trying to strong-arm redefine Gruber's name, and they'll win because they're bigger. It's in terribly poor taste. This will actually make things worse too, because they've invented another standard. People will see 'old' Markdown sites that don't work like 'new' Markdown sites ('Standard' is too subtle) and ascribe it to a bug in 'new' Markdown. They haven't avoided confusion in the way a new name would have done very quickly. Same confusion, acting like a jerk to take over someone else's creation. High class there.
- alphang 12y ago
  I've certainly struggled with the layout of exact stuff in Markdown ... but there's something about this name, the writing on the index.html, and the constant use of the unofficial file icon (which i'm really not a fan) that kind of irks me. Maybe it's the spirit of the naming? Maybe it's because of the effort to _brand_ this? And perhaps the developer-centric tone of the writing versus the writer-centric tone of the original spec? I'm not sure.
  - djur 12y ago
    From the original Markdown doc: "HTML is a publishing format; Markdown is a writing format. Thus, Markdown’s formatting syntax only addresses issues that can be conveyed in plain text." The lack of support for complex or exact layout was intentional. As I read it, if you want your Markdown documents to be rendered a specific way, you choose/configure/write a Markdown parser that renders it that way (possibly with the assistance of an additional stylesheet). If you need a particular extension for a task (tables, syntax-highlighted code blocks) you can use an parser that supports them. And if you need specific HTML elements, you can use them inline. The way I read it, Markdown is intended as an _input format for markup tools_, designed to be both legible and meaningful as plain text. Any meaning that can't be explicitly encoded in the ASCII format, including the specific HTML tags used to render a given construct, is outside Markdown's scope and should probably be stored in a more structured format.
wglb 12y ago
I vote for using a different name.
smackfu 12y ago
It kind of sounds like you have disagreed over the same things for five years now, and finally got enough names on your side that you decided you didn't need to get agreement and could just take over the name. Not cool.
- happyscrappy 12y ago
  Gruber should make a question and answer site called Standard StackOverflow.
  - oblio 12y ago
    And it should take over if StackOverflow's service is crappy.
- libria 12y ago
  Whatever. I really respect Gruber for his original design of markdown, but am puzzled by his destructive behavior in this. While he was sitting on his hands, a lot of us have been annoyed at creating a markdown doc in one app and finding it looks funny in another client. This spec is long overdue. He can still choose to be caustic and demand a rebrand, but it'll only delay the inevitable replacement of the original markdown.
  - math0ne 12y ago
    But wont that always be an issue because vendors will have to disable features selectively. I see the merits of a standard from a developer standpoint but I don't think hat solves the problem you are describing.
- jrochkind1 12y ago
  Gruber has been okay with people writing and distributing their own markdown processors, with whatever variations they want. The difference here is that they wrote a spec for the variation they plan to implement? That somehow makes it not cool? Or just that they're calling it "Standard Markdown"? Could the dispute be avoided if they called it "A Standardized Markdown", or "Standardized Flavor of Markdown" instead? There are many markdowns, and Gruber likes that, fine. Other people would like to standardize and make compatible implementations. Nothing's stopping people who disagree from continuing to ignore the standardized spec. But where' the logic in saying "you can release whatever markdown variations you like, as long as you don't try to make different implementations compatible with each other."
ihuman 12y ago
But isn't the ambiguity what allows you to make your own version? Edit: In case what I am writing is misunderstood, I am not trying to be snarky or negative. I am just curious.
- Marazan 12y ago
  I think most people would prefer there wasn't any ambiguity in the first place. No ambiguity, no 500 different things called XMarkdownY
  - RubyPinch 12y ago
    has there been any standardization efforts which didn't end up with implementation-specific changes everywhere? admittedly the worst example for such a topic, but, we still don't have a situation where all browsers agree on all renderings, and all of them still don't follow the spec, and in some areas, they don't plan to. I can see html requirement being a pain-point for anyone implementing standard markdown.
unclebunkers 12y ago
Going to be honest, I'm not cool with this, and will not support it under this name. I'm probably a minority, I almost always am, but it will impact how I view and support the products built by this team. Not cool with me gentlemen, not cool by half.
- npizzolato 12y ago
  You can't have your cake and eat it too. If ambiguity (and thus different implementations) is a feature, then a natural side effect is that another group of people can come along and say "this is ridiculous, let's define a new implementation we can all support". And if you're doing that, it's pretty obvious to call the effort to produce a standard implementation Standard Markdown. Unless you think Github-StackOverflow-Reddit-flavored markdown is a better name :)
  - unclebunkers 12y ago
    Yea, usually out of respect and general human decency, the inventor of a technology gets to retain rights to the name and the names usage. Very disappointed.
    - callum85 12y ago
      I think you've got it backwards. It would be less decent to give it an new name and forget its origins. Calling it Standard Markdown waives any claim to have created anything new. It makes it clear this is merely an effort to standardise the language Gruber famously invented. It gives all credit for origination to him.
      - unclebunkers 12y ago
        I'm 100% certain I don't have it backwards. Gruber is still alive, so you can ask him if he wants it the same name. Oh, they did; he said no. Not honoring the original inventors wishes is in direct opposition to propriety. It will cause me to file trademark against any open source project I don't want to lose rights to. Seriously, how am I the only one who doesn't think this is f^#&^%d up?
budu3 12y ago
I agree with Gruber. Ambiguity is a feature. It allows every implementer (leanpub, github et al) to add their own idiocentricities while staying true to Gruber's "spirit" of Markdown.
- libria 12y ago
  Can the same be achieved with a common core (spec) + 3rd party bolt-on extensions?
- grayclhn 12y ago
  Everyone is still free to implement their own version. But it seems like many of the people behind the biggest implementations would rather agree on a standard.
- josteink 12y ago
  They still can. They can be as ambiguous as they want. They just wont be able to advertise it as compliant with "Standard Markdown". I don't see a problem.

cnbuff410 12y ago

Go for it. Time will prove which side is correct.

MBCook 12y ago

But why use basically the same name? If you want to make a fully specified version why not give a slightly different name instead of just "Standard X"? Using (basically) the same name strikes me as somewhat hostile given the views Gruber has expressed, and likely to cause confusion to end users.

danielweber 12y ago
The problem is that once Gruber embraced ambiguity and encouraged lots of people to make whatever they want and call it "Markdown," it's hard to say "no, no, you can't call this one specific thing Markdown." IANAL.
- albedoa 12y ago
  He's not telling them they can't — he's saying they shouldn't. Those are very different things.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- jfb 12y ago
  It's less like he's saying they're wrong and more like he's saying they're rude.
- erroca 12y ago
  There's a difference between a fork (flavour), and just claiming ownership, which is what this is.
phpnode 12y ago
Markdown has outgrown Gruber's stewardship, "ambiguity is a feature" is not an opinion I can get behind. Calling this something other than markdown would be more confusing for end users. It is markdown, standardised.
- jdmichal 12y ago
  > It is markdown, standardised. I would avoid this wording. I would instead say: It's a flavor of markdown. The flavor is heavily documented. The flavor's name is "Standard Markdown".
- MBCook 12y ago
  "I don't like his position so he should lose his ownership". Lovely. My problem with the name "Standard Markdown" is I don't think it's going to be clear enough, I think people will think it's the same thing as Markdown (which it's not), under the theory that "non-standard" would have an obviously different name such as "Lisp Markdown" or "Japanese Markdown". If they had used a word other than "Markdown" I wouldn't have a single problem, I would cheer them on. I don't see a real benefit in this name to anyone, but I see serious downsides.
  - bmm6o 12y ago
    > "I don't like his position so he should lose his ownership" That's certainly an unbiased translation :rolls eyes:. If you want to have a good-faith debate, you should avoid tendentious re-writes of your interlocutor's arguments.
    - MBCook 12y ago
      > "ambiguity is a feature" is not an opinion I can get behind You clearly don't like his position. Be he has explicitly chosen not to make a specification, he's had years and numerous requests. From what I've seen/heard John Gruber likes that it isn't formalized with a spec. So if a group of people, especially a large group with 10s of millions of users (at a minimum) decides to write a spec and name it "Markdown" over Gruber's wishes it sounds like trying to take ownership from him. My phrase was glib, but I don't think it's that far off from many of the comments expressed here.
munificent 12y ago
> But why use basically the same name? Because it communicates the right thing to users >90% of the time. If you learn the language specified here and then go write some reddit comments or file a GitHub issue using that language, it will do what you expect. The few places where it doesn't you probably don't have an intuition about anyway. If you treat "markdown" as an improper word describing the language and not some sort of proper "brand name" that describes provenance, then what they describe here is "markdown".
- MBCook 12y ago
  > If you learn the language specified here and then go write some reddit comments or file a GitHub issue using that language, it will do what you expect. It would do the same thing if all those groups (since they seem to be onboard) had decided to call it TextMark or CommentAscii or some other new term. As long as they all use the same term it would be fine. But instead they're basically trying to strong-arm redefine Gruber's name, and they'll win because they're bigger. It's in terribly poor taste. This will actually make things worse too, because they've invented another standard. People will see 'old' Markdown sites that don't work like 'new' Markdown sites ('Standard' is too subtle) and ascribe it to a bug in 'new' Markdown. They haven't avoided confusion in the way a new name would have done very quickly. Same confusion, acting like a jerk to take over someone else's creation. High class there.
alphang 12y ago
I've certainly struggled with the layout of exact stuff in Markdown ... but there's something about this name, the writing on the index.html, and the constant use of the unofficial file icon (which i'm really not a fan) that kind of irks me. Maybe it's the spirit of the naming? Maybe it's because of the effort to _brand_ this? And perhaps the developer-centric tone of the writing versus the writer-centric tone of the original spec? I'm not sure.
- djur 12y ago
  From the original Markdown doc: "HTML is a publishing format; Markdown is a writing format. Thus, Markdown’s formatting syntax only addresses issues that can be conveyed in plain text." The lack of support for complex or exact layout was intentional. As I read it, if you want your Markdown documents to be rendered a specific way, you choose/configure/write a Markdown parser that renders it that way (possibly with the assistance of an additional stylesheet). If you need a particular extension for a task (tables, syntax-highlighted code blocks) you can use an parser that supports them. And if you need specific HTML elements, you can use them inline. The way I read it, Markdown is intended as an _input format for markup tools_, designed to be both legible and meaningful as plain text. Any meaning that can't be explicitly encoded in the ASCII format, including the specific HTML tags used to render a given construct, is outside Markdown's scope and should probably be stored in a more structured format.

wglb 12y ago

I vote for using a different name.

smackfu 12y ago

It kind of sounds like you have disagreed over the same things for five years now, and finally got enough names on your side that you decided you didn't need to get agreement and could just take over the name. Not cool.

happyscrappy 12y ago
Gruber should make a question and answer site called Standard StackOverflow.
- oblio 12y ago
  And it should take over if StackOverflow's service is crappy.
libria 12y ago
Whatever. I really respect Gruber for his original design of markdown, but am puzzled by his destructive behavior in this. While he was sitting on his hands, a lot of us have been annoyed at creating a markdown doc in one app and finding it looks funny in another client. This spec is long overdue. He can still choose to be caustic and demand a rebrand, but it'll only delay the inevitable replacement of the original markdown.
- math0ne 12y ago
  But wont that always be an issue because vendors will have to disable features selectively. I see the merits of a standard from a developer standpoint but I don't think hat solves the problem you are describing.
jrochkind1 12y ago
Gruber has been okay with people writing and distributing their own markdown processors, with whatever variations they want. The difference here is that they wrote a spec for the variation they plan to implement? That somehow makes it not cool? Or just that they're calling it "Standard Markdown"? Could the dispute be avoided if they called it "A Standardized Markdown", or "Standardized Flavor of Markdown" instead? There are many markdowns, and Gruber likes that, fine. Other people would like to standardize and make compatible implementations. Nothing's stopping people who disagree from continuing to ignore the standardized spec. But where' the logic in saying "you can release whatever markdown variations you like, as long as you don't try to make different implementations compatible with each other."

ihuman 12y ago

But isn't the ambiguity what allows you to make your own version? Edit: In case what I am writing is misunderstood, I am not trying to be snarky or negative. I am just curious.

Marazan 12y ago
I think most people would prefer there wasn't any ambiguity in the first place. No ambiguity, no 500 different things called XMarkdownY
- RubyPinch 12y ago
  has there been any standardization efforts which didn't end up with implementation-specific changes everywhere? admittedly the worst example for such a topic, but, we still don't have a situation where all browsers agree on all renderings, and all of them still don't follow the spec, and in some areas, they don't plan to. I can see html requirement being a pain-point for anyone implementing standard markdown.

unclebunkers 12y ago

Going to be honest, I'm not cool with this, and will not support it under this name. I'm probably a minority, I almost always am, but it will impact how I view and support the products built by this team. Not cool with me gentlemen, not cool by half.

npizzolato 12y ago
You can't have your cake and eat it too. If ambiguity (and thus different implementations) is a feature, then a natural side effect is that another group of people can come along and say "this is ridiculous, let's define a new implementation we can all support". And if you're doing that, it's pretty obvious to call the effort to produce a standard implementation Standard Markdown. Unless you think Github-StackOverflow-Reddit-flavored markdown is a better name :)
- unclebunkers 12y ago
  Yea, usually out of respect and general human decency, the inventor of a technology gets to retain rights to the name and the names usage. Very disappointed.
  - callum85 12y ago
    I think you've got it backwards. It would be less decent to give it an new name and forget its origins. Calling it Standard Markdown waives any claim to have created anything new. It makes it clear this is merely an effort to standardise the language Gruber famously invented. It gives all credit for origination to him.
    - unclebunkers 12y ago
      I'm 100% certain I don't have it backwards. Gruber is still alive, so you can ask him if he wants it the same name. Oh, they did; he said no. Not honoring the original inventors wishes is in direct opposition to propriety. It will cause me to file trademark against any open source project I don't want to lose rights to. Seriously, how am I the only one who doesn't think this is f^#&^%d up?

budu3 12y ago

I agree with Gruber. Ambiguity is a feature. It allows every implementer (leanpub, github et al) to add their own idiocentricities while staying true to Gruber's "spirit" of Markdown.

libria 12y ago
Can the same be achieved with a common core (spec) + 3rd party bolt-on extensions?
grayclhn 12y ago
Everyone is still free to implement their own version. But it seems like many of the people behind the biggest implementations would rather agree on a standard.
josteink 12y ago
They still can. They can be as ambiguous as they want. They just wont be able to advertise it as compliant with "Standard Markdown". I don't see a problem.