5 ms·

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

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?
      - callum85 12y ago
        I hadn't read the stuff about Gruber not wanting them to use the same name before I wrote my comment. But I still don't think it's 'fucked up' in the slightest. It actually sounds like Gruber is being irrational and a bit of a dick, from his comments that I've just read. His behaviour seems weirdly lame for someone capable of such good design. If he wanted to, he could have trademarked it, but he chose to give it free to the world and just sort of hoped that it would stay roughly in a shape he would like. Resisting standardisation is a weird thing to do. His notion that ambiguity is a feature is a dumb one. I think this is all relevant to the discussion about whether it's decent/honourable to use a similar name against his wishes. If his wishes are anti-progress, then tough luck, people are going to progress things if they can. He chose not to copyright/trademark anything. He can't have it both ways.
        zephtrip 12y ago
        He did copyright everything. Explicitly. In a very short license where one third of the conditions of use was: >Neither the name “Markdown” nor the names of its contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without specific prior written permission. Gruber is not being irrational. He is operating under a different paradigm, which he explained last time Marco Arment was on his podcast. He is approaching this from the view that the optimal markdown implementation for a code site like GitHub is different to the optimal markdown for a commenting site like Reddit. Standardisation just locks in a suboptimal implementation for everyone. Whether you agree or disagree, it's at least a rational viewpoint. The creator of the project let you do anything with it other than use the name markdown for a derivative product. They went ahead and did that. A completely unreasonable move that is just spiteful.
        callum85 12y ago
        Standardisation doesn't lock it down, it just establishes a central flavour. It doesn't force Github to use the standard. Github can keep using GFM. It still benefits Github and others for there to be a well-defined standard which they can use as a base for defining their own variations against. Documenting your own Markdown flavour will be easier if you can say "It's Standard Markdown, plus/except these features...", instead of "It's part of the soupy world of 'Markdown', but here are the features that some/all other implementations don't have...". > He did copyright everything. Explicitly. I didn't realise that. In that case he can force them to change it if he doesn't like it, right? I don't get why people are talking about honour/decency.
    - lmm 12y ago
      You can make it clear that your implementation isn't the "official" one without denying credit. See e.g. Iceweasel; it's very clear that a) it isn't Firefox b) it owes a lot to Firefox.

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?
    - callum85 12y ago
      I hadn't read the stuff about Gruber not wanting them to use the same name before I wrote my comment. But I still don't think it's 'fucked up' in the slightest. It actually sounds like Gruber is being irrational and a bit of a dick, from his comments that I've just read. His behaviour seems weirdly lame for someone capable of such good design. If he wanted to, he could have trademarked it, but he chose to give it free to the world and just sort of hoped that it would stay roughly in a shape he would like. Resisting standardisation is a weird thing to do. His notion that ambiguity is a feature is a dumb one. I think this is all relevant to the discussion about whether it's decent/honourable to use a similar name against his wishes. If his wishes are anti-progress, then tough luck, people are going to progress things if they can. He chose not to copyright/trademark anything. He can't have it both ways.
      - zephtrip 12y ago
        He did copyright everything. Explicitly. In a very short license where one third of the conditions of use was: >Neither the name “Markdown” nor the names of its contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without specific prior written permission. Gruber is not being irrational. He is operating under a different paradigm, which he explained last time Marco Arment was on his podcast. He is approaching this from the view that the optimal markdown implementation for a code site like GitHub is different to the optimal markdown for a commenting site like Reddit. Standardisation just locks in a suboptimal implementation for everyone. Whether you agree or disagree, it's at least a rational viewpoint. The creator of the project let you do anything with it other than use the name markdown for a derivative product. They went ahead and did that. A completely unreasonable move that is just spiteful.
        callum85 12y ago
        Standardisation doesn't lock it down, it just establishes a central flavour. It doesn't force Github to use the standard. Github can keep using GFM. It still benefits Github and others for there to be a well-defined standard which they can use as a base for defining their own variations against. Documenting your own Markdown flavour will be easier if you can say "It's Standard Markdown, plus/except these features...", instead of "It's part of the soupy world of 'Markdown', but here are the features that some/all other implementations don't have...". > He did copyright everything. Explicitly. I didn't realise that. In that case he can force them to change it if he doesn't like it, right? I don't get why people are talking about honour/decency.
  - lmm 12y ago
    You can make it clear that your implementation isn't the "official" one without denying credit. See e.g. Iceweasel; it's very clear that a) it isn't Firefox b) it owes a lot to Firefox.