8 ms·

OMG Markdown

91 points by ot 12y ago

pkamb 12y ago
> Standard Markdown is now Common Markdown http://blog.codinghorror.com/standard-markdown-is-now-common-markdown/ http://blog.codinghorror.com/standard-markdown-is-now-common... https://twitter.com/codinghorror/status/507672066540453888 https://twitter.com/codinghorror/status/507672066540453888 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8271327 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8271327
todd8 12y ago
I think it's worth noting that TeX was standardized and frozen by Knuth (at version 3.14159...). I recall that Knuth wrote that it was important to have a documentation format that didn't drift over time so that in the future TeX would properly process documents written many years before. Knuth also protected the name TeX. There have been a number of important packages that run on top of TeX, for example LaTeX and ConText and even enhanced implementations of TeX itself, like LuaTeX, pdftex, and xetex; however, only Knuth's TeX can be called "TeX". It seems that this has worked out for TeX, something similar could be done for Markdown.
- espadrine 12y ago
  "TeX" is literally a substring of "LaTeX", just like "Markdown" is a substring of "Standard Markdown". Further, I don't really want to write TeX. I want to write LaTeX, and only care about a PDF output, which isn't what the original TeX program specializes in at all. Standard Markdown is a breath of fresh air that ensures the continued success of Markdown, just like LaTeX did for TeX. Of course, only a few websites have adopted it for now, but I would not be flabbergasted if I started seeing more websites adopt it. TeX is dead. So is Markdown. We have a new king.
- x0x0 12y ago
  tex, unlike gruber's markdown, is both maintained and has a turing complete language inside it. I don't think gruber's markdown is a good core for anything. Rather, people really like the idea, and have been filling in missing features along the way.
  - pyre 12y ago
    It's even less about missing features than about bringing some sanity to the ambiguities in the few features that Markdown has. Markdown doesn't even do a good job of spec'ing the few features that it does have.
- doe88 12y ago
  Exactly, I don't understand people making the argument that a project is abandonned because it doesn't evolve, I think that Gruber thinks it's a feature. I also understand why another group of people would want to make evolve and extend this work I think it's fair. But what I don't get is this offensive naming Standard Markdown it is somewhat made to make look Markdown deprecated, old, instead of simply communicating on the idea that it is a different project originally based on Markdown but oriented in a different direction. Worst of all I think this naming was choosen on purpose.
  - pyre 12y ago
    > that a project is abandonned because it doesn't evolve While I wouldn't say that a project is abandoned, I would say that a project is broken if it's a file format that has many ambiguities in the spec, and bug reports to the author/maintainer are all marked as WONTFIX. I really wouldn't describe that situation as "doesn't evolve" either.
    - doe88 12y ago
      Yes, but for instance sometimes in my open source projects I disagree with the philosophy or with the purpose of a patch and I mark it WONTFIX, I feel bad because I don't want to offense people that take the time to contribute, but above all I don't want to mess-up with my project so I don't commit the patch. At the end of the day I think you're the creator of the project, you have a vision, you are the editor and you must not feel bad about it. And after all, if people disagree, they fork it and make it their own project with their own name. But calling it abandonned or bad stewardship is simply wrong.
      - pyre 12y ago
        When you make something, and publish it with the intent that it is used by others, then you can't turn around and decide that any/all criticism is unfair. Take the Linux kernel for example. If Linus Torvalds decides to abandon all support for architectures other than MIPS in the Linux kernel, would you not consider it fair game to criticize his stewardship of the Linux kernel? Or is all criticism silenced by, "well, it's my project so I can do whatever I want to do?" This is also a little more ambiguous because Markdown is a loose file format spec rather than a project with "actual" code, so no one is really "submitting patches."
- duaneb 12y ago
  > Knuth's TeX can be called "TeX". Not true, actually, I believe he's made allowances for other implementations to be called that IFF they implement it correctly. I still believe it's controlled by him, but it's not a completely frozen name.
- tbatchelli 12y ago
  I don't think Knuth would be happy with "Standard TeX". In my mind, the problematic part is of "Standard Markdown" is "Standard", not the composition of "X Markdown". "Standard Markdown" makes it the real Markdown for most people, and that is the problem, that it feels like you're trying to steal the work from the original author, not build on it.
  - aaronem 12y ago
    > I don't think Knuth would be happy with "Standard TeX". Perhaps that's because Dr. Knuth actually standardized TeX, unlike what Gruber did with Markdown.
jader201 12y ago
> I believe, MD has proliferated this far, not because it is an ambiguous, open to interpretation spec but in-spite of that. Gruber apparently directly disagrees with this: https://twitter.com/gruber/status/507364924340060160 https://twitter.com/gruber/status/507364924340060160
- ossreality 12y ago
  And the replies there show that Gruber is wrong. I know I don't like the guy, but is he really this full of himself?
- scott_s 12y ago
  Yes, but the author's statement was made in direct response to Gruber's; the author was aware of, and responding to that statement.
  - jader201 12y ago
    I was wondering that too, but I could not find this quote cited anywhere. Did I miss it?
    - scott_s 12y ago
      When it comes to blog posts on Markdown standardization, I think that Gruber's stance that Markdown succeeded because of its lack of specification is assumed background information. I don't think that tweet is the first time Gruber has expressed the sentiment.
      - jader201 12y ago
        I agree, there was never any doubt that Gruber felt this way. I just thought it was interesting that the OP's quote was in direct contradiction to a quote Gruber Tweeted yesterday, and thought the Tweet and its context was worth including here, considering it wasn't cited in the blog.
- antidaily 12y ago
unclebunkers 12y ago
I asked Gruber specifically whether he approved, and he was VERY clear, he did not. It's therefore a dick move, period end. Voting me down doesn't change the fact that it's a dick move. The reason the team wants to use the Markdown name is because of the currency behind it. It's Gruber's currency.
- rschuetzler 12y ago
  They also want to use the name because their project directly comes from Markdown. And is a fully fleshed-out spec for Markdown that does not currently exist. And because it makes their project easily recognizable for what it is: a standard for Gruber's Markdown. They may very well end up changing the name, but that doesn't change the fact that this project is basically Markdown++.
  - etchalon 12y ago
    And if it's any good, people will move on. Gruber's "Markdown" will disappear and everyone will talk about the "Markdown-influenced Textmarks." Everyone knows Linux was inspired heavily by UNIX, and yet, it's called Linux instead of "Standard UNIX".
- aaronem 12y ago
  That's nice. When I first encountered Markdown, almost a decade ago, I loved it. To say that I now hate it would be going a little bit far, but only a little; I'm awfully close to that. This change in opinion has occurred almost entirely because, every single time I encounter something that "accepts Markdown", I have to spend some time investigating its documentation to find out what ill-specified sui generis variation of Markdown it supports, and then, usually, also poke at the implementation in order to find out where it differs from the docs. Every single time. This would not happen if Markdown were well enough specified that developers could just drop in a parser library and be done. Gruber's currency? Everyone knows he invented Markdown. Everyone loves him for it. And everyone who has ever dealt with Markdown more than once knows that Gruber didn't take it far enough. He's had ten years in which to do so, and he hasn't done it. Now the community, led by Atwood et al., is acting to redress the lack. That Gruber should be upset by their calling their standardized Markdown "Standard Markdown", when he's had and squandered a decade in which to address the plainly evident need for that very thing, leaves me utterly unmoved. If it bothers him badly enough, let him sue! And we'll all see how well that works out for him. Otherwise, his "currency" would I think gain more from almost any other course of action than further prolonging the exercise in sour grapes which his Twitter appears to have become.
MBCook 12y ago
Is anyone actually arguing that that no one should ever write a specification? Everything I've seen has been about the co-opting of the name. That seems to be Gruber's issue: Marco: What if they just make their own thing, give it their own name, and see if it catches on? [Gruber]: Exactly! https://twitter.com/gruber/status/507590561172176897 https://twitter.com/gruber/status/507590561172176897
- antidaily 12y ago
  Yeah and I already forgot what the new name is.
pkamb 12y ago
> However, Standard Markdown does violate MD’s BSD license: > 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. > So does MultiMarkdown. So does Github Flavored Markdown. This is what I don't understand about this uproar. The word "markdown" has been used in multiple products and offshoots from Markdown, and no one has said a peep. What makes "Standard Markdown" different from the existing products? "Comment Markdown"? "Code flavored Markdown"? "Startup Flavored Markdown"? "Startup Markdown"? "Standard Flavored Markdown"? "A Standardized Implementation of Markdown"? "Specced Markdown"? "The Standard Dialect of Markdown"? Are any of these acceptable? Why do these folks, alone, need to remove the word "markdown" from their name? And is it specifically the word "Standard", or perhaps the lack of a "flavored"-type word, that is grinding gears?
- jader201 12y ago
  > And is it specifically the word "Standard", or perhaps the lack of a "flavored"-type word, that is grinding gears? I think this is it. I think Gruber sees "Standard" as implying ownership or original or universal [1]. I think naming it another "flavor" would have been completely fine with him [2] [3]. [1] https://twitter.com/gruber/status/507562824311508992 https://twitter.com/gruber/status/507562824311508992 [2] https://twitter.com/gruber/status/507556483559858176 https://twitter.com/gruber/status/507556483559858176 [3] https://twitter.com/gruber/status/507566934746226688 https://twitter.com/gruber/status/507566934746226688
- alphang 12y ago
  https://twitter.com/gruber/status/507570504279293953 https://twitter.com/gruber/status/507570504279293953
- pyre 12y ago
  Apparently (at least some) people are claiming that it's the "Standard" that is 'offensive,' and not "Markdown." It just seems like a case-study in splitting hairs though. The real issue boils down to: 1. This is a project designed to become the new Markdown spec, thereby wrestling control of "Markdown" from Gruber. 2. This project was developed in-concert with most of the big sites that use Markdown (StackExchange, Reddit, Github), and therefore has enough weight behind it to push it as the defacto standard. 3. The name "Standard Markdown" is generic enough to possibly cause brand-confusion whereas "MultiMarkdown" and "Github Flavored Markdown" come off as offshoots of The Original Markdown(tm). Personally, I think that Gruber's mostly upset that this has the potential to become the defacto Markdown while still using Markdown in the name. If (e.g.) MultiMarkdown was in a similar position, he would probably be pitching the same fit. [ I really don't like the name "Standard Markdown" in general. I prefer a suggestion I saw elsewhere, "Common Markdown." ]
swilliams 12y ago
From what I've gathered, the only thing Gruber is upset about is the name "Standard" Markdown. I don't think he cares if there is some kind of body that has some kind of standards thing. I'd bet that if the "Standard Markdown" people called it something else and even kept the exact same syntax, he'd be fine with it.
autarch 12y ago
Serious question ... What do you do when the founder of a project becomes an impediment to its progress? Gruber is clearly the creator and popularizer of Markdown. OTOH, he's been uninvolved in anything related to it for years (AFAICT). The corollary to this question is to what degree the founder of a project "owns" aspects of the project (code, name, etc.) after they drop out. I'm not asking about legal ownership but rather moral ownership.
- jader201 12y ago
  This is exactly the question I have. And I almost think Gruber acknowledges this, and would possibly otherwise be tolerant (maybe even supportive) of this initiative had it been given another name. However, I also question the success of this initiative had it been given another "flavor" name. Edit: Not sure if this is the case after seeing this: https://twitter.com/gruber/status/507570504279293953 https://twitter.com/gruber/status/507570504279293953
- arrrg 12y ago
  This is real simple. You don’t get to appropriate the name just because you wanna. Maybe legally you can under some circumstances, but ethically it’s completely and utterly bankrupt. I cannot even fathom how anyone could even get the idea to appropriate the name and the project in that way. It shows a complete lack of respect and decency. Naming it something different is very simple. Really, very simple.
  - seiji 12y ago
    In the modern realm of scripting-is-programming and "startups must win at all costs, damn the ethics" mindsets, people just act as greedily as they can until a larger (monetary) entity gets tired of being exploited and begins causing (monetary) pain down upon the exploiters.
  - x0x0 12y ago
    Yeah, but Gruber is apparently upset about standard markdown, but not about the other dozen uses of markdown all over the place. It's a bit late to get upset about calling things X Markdown. If it where a trademark, I think he'd lose it, because they have to be actively defended.
tehwalrus 12y ago
I would love for markdown to be in more places, and work the same everywhere. Standard Markdown is a darn good name to use for that, and while Gruber is sometimes right, he is definitely hit and miss (and with gathering together all the ways to add tables to Markdown, and picking one and adding it to the "spec" on his site, he missed.)
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
otikik 12y ago
Agree with everything on that post.
mythz 12y ago
IMO Gruber's request is perfectly reasonable: > They’ve done more than “formalize”. They’ve changed the syntax. New syntax, new name. That’s all I ask. - https://twitter.com/gruber/status/507651498692849665 https://twitter.com/gruber/status/507651498692849665
- Yver 12y ago
  They floated the name "RockDown" back then. Whatever happened to that?
peawee 12y ago
What if we called it ANSI Markdown instead? Read the foreword to http://flash-gordon.me.uk/ansi.c.txt http://flash-gordon.me.uk/ansi.c.txt , and it sounds very similar to the Markdown issue. C is still called C, regardless of what ANSI (and later ISO) did to it.
jarjoura 12y ago
The fact that this whole charade is over one word "standard" because it seemingly takes control away from Gruber rubs me the wrong way. Jeff Atwood and co have done nothing but praise Markdown. They've worked really hard to flesh out a starting point for a standardized Markdown implementation. I think the word they chose, "Standard" makes perfect sense here. Instead, both John Gruber and Marco Arment are acting super immature about the whole situation. Reading their Tweets today I keep imagining them stomping their feet on the ground because someone did something they didn't approve of. I don't mean to add fuel to any fire, but I really think we shouldn't be validating their overly-dramatic behavior. I'm sure that Gruber could have politely sent Atwood an email or even public tweet asking that his project reconsider a better name, maybe even calling it something like "Rockdown." From everything I've read so far, Atwood seemed to want Gruber on board but got crickets instead.
- mwcampbell 12y ago
  I'm with Gruber and Arment on this. It's really simple. Markdown is Gruber's name. So he's the only one with the authority to say what "standard Markdown" is. Atwood and company should just rename their spec and be done with it. EDIT: To be really classy, after the rename, redirect standardmarkdown.com to Gruber's Markdown home page.
  - McGlockenshire 12y ago
    > he's the only one with the authority to say what "standard Markdown" is And he utterly refuses to do anything to actually improve the clarity of the original document and make it easier and more obvious to determine how parsers should behave. > Atwood and company should just rename their spec and be done with it. It's kind of upsetting that they didn't. If they'd chosen another name, there'd have been no controversy.
  - jeremymcanally 12y ago
    I agree they should rename, and after they rename, no one will give a crap about Markdown anymore. Remember Hudson? Maybe you've heard of Jenkins? Exactly. All the big players who make use of Markdown are on board with this. If they all adopt this "standard" whatever it's called, it will effectively spell the end of mass usage of "Markdown" as it stands now. That's why this keruffle is so stupid. Then again, renaming will take away the attention from the stupid yelling over the name, so maybe they should just do it and deprive them of it. Call it Sparkdown or Harkdown or something so the connection is still apparent and move on.
mikeash 12y ago
All this fuss over a name. A name that the purported owner hasn't enforced before. A name that's been used by hundreds of other projects. A name that's been thoroughly genericized, and is descriptive of the project. I can see why Gruber is upset, but why does anybody else feel the need to be upset for him?
jhamdotme 12y ago
In his previous article (http://spinhalf.net/typos/ http://spinhalf.net/typos/), he rails against typos and about how horrible they are for our comprehension. Not surprisingly, he messes up himself: “I immediately loose my train of thought.” Me too, man. Me too.
- bshimmin 12y ago
  As I finished reading his piece on Markdown (with which I agreed wholeheartedly), my eyes glanced down through the next heading, "Typos", through the date, and landed on "efficeint".
wrs 12y ago
Is the solution as simple as changing the name to "Interoperable Markdown"? Markdown interoperability is not now and has never been a goal of Gruber's -- indeed he seems to celebrate the lack of it. Use of the name "<adjective> Markdown" for incompatible derivatives has been accepted for many years. So replacing the word "Standard" with an explicit description of the difference ("Interoperable") between plain old Markdown (whatever that is, since it's not well-defined) and this must be OK, right?
- pkamb 12y ago
  > Only two maybes I’ve thought of: Strict Markdown or Pedantic Markdown. “Strict” still doesn’t seem right. https://twitter.com/gruber/status/507615356295200770 https://twitter.com/gruber/status/507615356295200770
X-Istence 12y ago
If Standard Markdown doesn't use a single line of code from the original Markdown, how are the license terms being violated? I didn't see any mention of Standard Markdown being an modification to the original Markdown code base.
tuananh 12y ago
The whole ideal of open-sourcing things is that to allow community to further improve it. got pissed over a name because others do a better job than you at maintaining it is a dick. I'm with Jeff and the gang on this.
byuu 12y ago
A similar situation happened to me, but obviously on a smaller scale. I added support for using pixel shaders on emulated video game output, but rather than have separate files for the vertex and fragment shaders, I put the pair into an XML file, and also included settings for min/mag filter, texture format, etc there as well; so that it was all self-contained as a single file that you could paste on a forum. I released this, and some other people liked the idea, but wanted it to support multiple shader passes. Which was great! I wanted to add this, but had a lot of much higher priority items on my plate and couldn't get to it quickly enough. So they went ahead and added multi-pass, texture lookup, reflection, and a whole bunch of other neat features without consulting me, released their own software and then called it "version 1.1", while continuing to support my spec as "version 1.0" The results were obvious: lots of users coming to me to ask why their XML shaders weren't working, which turned out to be because they were using a different standard. Shader writers began targeting 1.1 syntax even without using any additional features, which needlessly took away compatibility with my own program. This wouldn't have been so bad, I could have just supported their new spec once I had time, except that they took the spec in a direction I felt was flawed and against the spirit of it. Referencing external texture files which created file naming conflicts (shader A and shader B both loading their own separate versions of texture.png), losing the ability to post them as inline text on forums, having very inconsistent syntax to what I had been doing, features that were vague in their combinatorial effects, etc. I ultimately had to abandon my own (retroactively named for me) "version 1.0" specification and start on an entirely new format to resolve that ambiguity. They were certainly in the right and clear to do the work that I wouldn't, but I do regret that they took my name, and ended up causing a lot of confusion for end users. And now I worry about this happening to all of my formats (I have a markup format, a delta-based binary diff tool, the new multi-pass shader format, and a few others.) I could try and come up with some licensing term that would most certainly get all of my software kicked out of Debian's main repositories; but there's really no way for me to stop anyone from fragmenting my specifications again, as I simply don't have the money nor desire to trademark things and attempt to sue people for enforcement. So, with that said ... I'm with John Gruber on this. If he is asking them to change the name, they should change the name. It's just the polite thing to do. Even if Gruber is a terrible steward, he created it. Keeping Markdown in the name is clearly just intended to capitalize on the success of the format, which they themselves did not earn.
eik3_de 12y ago
Guys, just rename "Standard Markdown" to Marky, leave Gruber sit on his Markdown name and move on. MacFarlane, GitHub, meteor, reddit and Atwood/stackexchange can let the world know that "markdown" is now legacy and the future lies in Marky
gojomo 12y ago
Let's fix this by calling it 'RSS 2.1'.
barraponto 12y ago
Voldemark, the markup language that cannot be named.
BerislavLopac 12y ago
I don't think that's an issue of control. Quite the contrary, Gruber wants nobody to have the control, and he doesn't want the language to be standardized, as he believes that it will prevent it from evolving and expanding on its own. He didn't complain about MultiMarkdown or GitHub Flavored Markdown, because those examples of precisely that evolution. The problem with "Standard Markdown" is that it implies "the one true way", and gives a (theoretical at least) power to a relatively small group to dictate what is Markdown-kosher and what isn't.

91 points by ot 12y ago

pkamb 12y ago

> Standard Markdown is now Common Markdown http://blog.codinghorror.com/standard-markdown-is-now-common-markdown/ http://blog.codinghorror.com/standard-markdown-is-now-common... https://twitter.com/codinghorror/status/507672066540453888 https://twitter.com/codinghorror/status/507672066540453888 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8271327 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8271327

todd8 12y ago

I think it's worth noting that TeX was standardized and frozen by Knuth (at version 3.14159...). I recall that Knuth wrote that it was important to have a documentation format that didn't drift over time so that in the future TeX would properly process documents written many years before. Knuth also protected the name TeX. There have been a number of important packages that run on top of TeX, for example LaTeX and ConText and even enhanced implementations of TeX itself, like LuaTeX, pdftex, and xetex; however, only Knuth's TeX can be called "TeX". It seems that this has worked out for TeX, something similar could be done for Markdown.

espadrine 12y ago
"TeX" is literally a substring of "LaTeX", just like "Markdown" is a substring of "Standard Markdown". Further, I don't really want to write TeX. I want to write LaTeX, and only care about a PDF output, which isn't what the original TeX program specializes in at all. Standard Markdown is a breath of fresh air that ensures the continued success of Markdown, just like LaTeX did for TeX. Of course, only a few websites have adopted it for now, but I would not be flabbergasted if I started seeing more websites adopt it. TeX is dead. So is Markdown. We have a new king.
x0x0 12y ago
tex, unlike gruber's markdown, is both maintained and has a turing complete language inside it. I don't think gruber's markdown is a good core for anything. Rather, people really like the idea, and have been filling in missing features along the way.
- pyre 12y ago
  It's even less about missing features than about bringing some sanity to the ambiguities in the few features that Markdown has. Markdown doesn't even do a good job of spec'ing the few features that it does have.
doe88 12y ago
Exactly, I don't understand people making the argument that a project is abandonned because it doesn't evolve, I think that Gruber thinks it's a feature. I also understand why another group of people would want to make evolve and extend this work I think it's fair. But what I don't get is this offensive naming Standard Markdown it is somewhat made to make look Markdown deprecated, old, instead of simply communicating on the idea that it is a different project originally based on Markdown but oriented in a different direction. Worst of all I think this naming was choosen on purpose.
- pyre 12y ago
  > that a project is abandonned because it doesn't evolve While I wouldn't say that a project is abandoned, I would say that a project is broken if it's a file format that has many ambiguities in the spec, and bug reports to the author/maintainer are all marked as WONTFIX. I really wouldn't describe that situation as "doesn't evolve" either.
  - doe88 12y ago
    Yes, but for instance sometimes in my open source projects I disagree with the philosophy or with the purpose of a patch and I mark it WONTFIX, I feel bad because I don't want to offense people that take the time to contribute, but above all I don't want to mess-up with my project so I don't commit the patch. At the end of the day I think you're the creator of the project, you have a vision, you are the editor and you must not feel bad about it. And after all, if people disagree, they fork it and make it their own project with their own name. But calling it abandonned or bad stewardship is simply wrong.
    - pyre 12y ago
      When you make something, and publish it with the intent that it is used by others, then you can't turn around and decide that any/all criticism is unfair. Take the Linux kernel for example. If Linus Torvalds decides to abandon all support for architectures other than MIPS in the Linux kernel, would you not consider it fair game to criticize his stewardship of the Linux kernel? Or is all criticism silenced by, "well, it's my project so I can do whatever I want to do?" This is also a little more ambiguous because Markdown is a loose file format spec rather than a project with "actual" code, so no one is really "submitting patches."
duaneb 12y ago
> Knuth's TeX can be called "TeX". Not true, actually, I believe he's made allowances for other implementations to be called that IFF they implement it correctly. I still believe it's controlled by him, but it's not a completely frozen name.
tbatchelli 12y ago
I don't think Knuth would be happy with "Standard TeX". In my mind, the problematic part is of "Standard Markdown" is "Standard", not the composition of "X Markdown". "Standard Markdown" makes it the real Markdown for most people, and that is the problem, that it feels like you're trying to steal the work from the original author, not build on it.
- aaronem 12y ago
  > I don't think Knuth would be happy with "Standard TeX". Perhaps that's because Dr. Knuth actually standardized TeX, unlike what Gruber did with Markdown.

jader201 12y ago

> I believe, MD has proliferated this far, not because it is an ambiguous, open to interpretation spec but in-spite of that. Gruber apparently directly disagrees with this: https://twitter.com/gruber/status/507364924340060160 https://twitter.com/gruber/status/507364924340060160

ossreality 12y ago
And the replies there show that Gruber is wrong. I know I don't like the guy, but is he really this full of himself?
scott_s 12y ago
Yes, but the author's statement was made in direct response to Gruber's; the author was aware of, and responding to that statement.
- jader201 12y ago
  I was wondering that too, but I could not find this quote cited anywhere. Did I miss it?
  - scott_s 12y ago
    When it comes to blog posts on Markdown standardization, I think that Gruber's stance that Markdown succeeded because of its lack of specification is assumed background information. I don't think that tweet is the first time Gruber has expressed the sentiment.
    - jader201 12y ago
      I agree, there was never any doubt that Gruber felt this way. I just thought it was interesting that the OP's quote was in direct contradiction to a quote Gruber Tweeted yesterday, and thought the Tweet and its context was worth including here, considering it wasn't cited in the blog.
antidaily 12y ago

unclebunkers 12y ago

I asked Gruber specifically whether he approved, and he was VERY clear, he did not. It's therefore a dick move, period end. Voting me down doesn't change the fact that it's a dick move. The reason the team wants to use the Markdown name is because of the currency behind it. It's Gruber's currency.

rschuetzler 12y ago
They also want to use the name because their project directly comes from Markdown. And is a fully fleshed-out spec for Markdown that does not currently exist. And because it makes their project easily recognizable for what it is: a standard for Gruber's Markdown. They may very well end up changing the name, but that doesn't change the fact that this project is basically Markdown++.
- etchalon 12y ago
  And if it's any good, people will move on. Gruber's "Markdown" will disappear and everyone will talk about the "Markdown-influenced Textmarks." Everyone knows Linux was inspired heavily by UNIX, and yet, it's called Linux instead of "Standard UNIX".
aaronem 12y ago
That's nice. When I first encountered Markdown, almost a decade ago, I loved it. To say that I now hate it would be going a little bit far, but only a little; I'm awfully close to that. This change in opinion has occurred almost entirely because, every single time I encounter something that "accepts Markdown", I have to spend some time investigating its documentation to find out what ill-specified sui generis variation of Markdown it supports, and then, usually, also poke at the implementation in order to find out where it differs from the docs. Every single time. This would not happen if Markdown were well enough specified that developers could just drop in a parser library and be done. Gruber's currency? Everyone knows he invented Markdown. Everyone loves him for it. And everyone who has ever dealt with Markdown more than once knows that Gruber didn't take it far enough. He's had ten years in which to do so, and he hasn't done it. Now the community, led by Atwood et al., is acting to redress the lack. That Gruber should be upset by their calling their standardized Markdown "Standard Markdown", when he's had and squandered a decade in which to address the plainly evident need for that very thing, leaves me utterly unmoved. If it bothers him badly enough, let him sue! And we'll all see how well that works out for him. Otherwise, his "currency" would I think gain more from almost any other course of action than further prolonging the exercise in sour grapes which his Twitter appears to have become.

MBCook 12y ago

Is anyone actually arguing that that no one should ever write a specification? Everything I've seen has been about the co-opting of the name. That seems to be Gruber's issue: Marco: What if they just make their own thing, give it their own name, and see if it catches on? [Gruber]: Exactly! https://twitter.com/gruber/status/507590561172176897 https://twitter.com/gruber/status/507590561172176897

antidaily 12y ago
Yeah and I already forgot what the new name is.

pkamb 12y ago

> However, Standard Markdown does violate MD’s BSD license: > 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. > So does MultiMarkdown. So does Github Flavored Markdown. This is what I don't understand about this uproar. The word "markdown" has been used in multiple products and offshoots from Markdown, and no one has said a peep. What makes "Standard Markdown" different from the existing products? "Comment Markdown"? "Code flavored Markdown"? "Startup Flavored Markdown"? "Startup Markdown"? "Standard Flavored Markdown"? "A Standardized Implementation of Markdown"? "Specced Markdown"? "The Standard Dialect of Markdown"? Are any of these acceptable? Why do these folks, alone, need to remove the word "markdown" from their name? And is it specifically the word "Standard", or perhaps the lack of a "flavored"-type word, that is grinding gears?

jader201 12y ago
> And is it specifically the word "Standard", or perhaps the lack of a "flavored"-type word, that is grinding gears? I think this is it. I think Gruber sees "Standard" as implying ownership or original or universal [1]. I think naming it another "flavor" would have been completely fine with him [2] [3]. [1] https://twitter.com/gruber/status/507562824311508992 https://twitter.com/gruber/status/507562824311508992 [2] https://twitter.com/gruber/status/507556483559858176 https://twitter.com/gruber/status/507556483559858176 [3] https://twitter.com/gruber/status/507566934746226688 https://twitter.com/gruber/status/507566934746226688
alphang 12y ago
https://twitter.com/gruber/status/507570504279293953 https://twitter.com/gruber/status/507570504279293953
pyre 12y ago
Apparently (at least some) people are claiming that it's the "Standard" that is 'offensive,' and not "Markdown." It just seems like a case-study in splitting hairs though. The real issue boils down to: 1. This is a project designed to become the new Markdown spec, thereby wrestling control of "Markdown" from Gruber. 2. This project was developed in-concert with most of the big sites that use Markdown (StackExchange, Reddit, Github), and therefore has enough weight behind it to push it as the defacto standard. 3. The name "Standard Markdown" is generic enough to possibly cause brand-confusion whereas "MultiMarkdown" and "Github Flavored Markdown" come off as offshoots of The Original Markdown(tm). Personally, I think that Gruber's mostly upset that this has the potential to become the defacto Markdown while still using Markdown in the name. If (e.g.) MultiMarkdown was in a similar position, he would probably be pitching the same fit. [ I really don't like the name "Standard Markdown" in general. I prefer a suggestion I saw elsewhere, "Common Markdown." ]

swilliams 12y ago

From what I've gathered, the only thing Gruber is upset about is the name "Standard" Markdown. I don't think he cares if there is some kind of body that has some kind of standards thing. I'd bet that if the "Standard Markdown" people called it something else and even kept the exact same syntax, he'd be fine with it.

autarch 12y ago

Serious question ... What do you do when the founder of a project becomes an impediment to its progress? Gruber is clearly the creator and popularizer of Markdown. OTOH, he's been uninvolved in anything related to it for years (AFAICT). The corollary to this question is to what degree the founder of a project "owns" aspects of the project (code, name, etc.) after they drop out. I'm not asking about legal ownership but rather moral ownership.

jader201 12y ago
This is exactly the question I have. And I almost think Gruber acknowledges this, and would possibly otherwise be tolerant (maybe even supportive) of this initiative had it been given another name. However, I also question the success of this initiative had it been given another "flavor" name. Edit: Not sure if this is the case after seeing this: https://twitter.com/gruber/status/507570504279293953 https://twitter.com/gruber/status/507570504279293953
arrrg 12y ago
This is real simple. You don’t get to appropriate the name just because you wanna. Maybe legally you can under some circumstances, but ethically it’s completely and utterly bankrupt. I cannot even fathom how anyone could even get the idea to appropriate the name and the project in that way. It shows a complete lack of respect and decency. Naming it something different is very simple. Really, very simple.
- seiji 12y ago
  In the modern realm of scripting-is-programming and "startups must win at all costs, damn the ethics" mindsets, people just act as greedily as they can until a larger (monetary) entity gets tired of being exploited and begins causing (monetary) pain down upon the exploiters.
- x0x0 12y ago
  Yeah, but Gruber is apparently upset about standard markdown, but not about the other dozen uses of markdown all over the place. It's a bit late to get upset about calling things X Markdown. If it where a trademark, I think he'd lose it, because they have to be actively defended.

tehwalrus 12y ago

I would love for markdown to be in more places, and work the same everywhere. Standard Markdown is a darn good name to use for that, and while Gruber is sometimes right, he is definitely hit and miss (and with gathering together all the ways to add tables to Markdown, and picking one and adding it to the "spec" on his site, he missed.)

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

otikik 12y ago

Agree with everything on that post.

mythz 12y ago

IMO Gruber's request is perfectly reasonable: > They’ve done more than “formalize”. They’ve changed the syntax. New syntax, new name. That’s all I ask. - https://twitter.com/gruber/status/507651498692849665 https://twitter.com/gruber/status/507651498692849665

Yver 12y ago
They floated the name "RockDown" back then. Whatever happened to that?

peawee 12y ago

What if we called it ANSI Markdown instead? Read the foreword to http://flash-gordon.me.uk/ansi.c.txt http://flash-gordon.me.uk/ansi.c.txt , and it sounds very similar to the Markdown issue. C is still called C, regardless of what ANSI (and later ISO) did to it.

jarjoura 12y ago

The fact that this whole charade is over one word "standard" because it seemingly takes control away from Gruber rubs me the wrong way. Jeff Atwood and co have done nothing but praise Markdown. They've worked really hard to flesh out a starting point for a standardized Markdown implementation. I think the word they chose, "Standard" makes perfect sense here. Instead, both John Gruber and Marco Arment are acting super immature about the whole situation. Reading their Tweets today I keep imagining them stomping their feet on the ground because someone did something they didn't approve of. I don't mean to add fuel to any fire, but I really think we shouldn't be validating their overly-dramatic behavior. I'm sure that Gruber could have politely sent Atwood an email or even public tweet asking that his project reconsider a better name, maybe even calling it something like "Rockdown." From everything I've read so far, Atwood seemed to want Gruber on board but got crickets instead.

mwcampbell 12y ago
I'm with Gruber and Arment on this. It's really simple. Markdown is Gruber's name. So he's the only one with the authority to say what "standard Markdown" is. Atwood and company should just rename their spec and be done with it. EDIT: To be really classy, after the rename, redirect standardmarkdown.com to Gruber's Markdown home page.
- McGlockenshire 12y ago
  > he's the only one with the authority to say what "standard Markdown" is And he utterly refuses to do anything to actually improve the clarity of the original document and make it easier and more obvious to determine how parsers should behave. > Atwood and company should just rename their spec and be done with it. It's kind of upsetting that they didn't. If they'd chosen another name, there'd have been no controversy.
- jeremymcanally 12y ago
  I agree they should rename, and after they rename, no one will give a crap about Markdown anymore. Remember Hudson? Maybe you've heard of Jenkins? Exactly. All the big players who make use of Markdown are on board with this. If they all adopt this "standard" whatever it's called, it will effectively spell the end of mass usage of "Markdown" as it stands now. That's why this keruffle is so stupid. Then again, renaming will take away the attention from the stupid yelling over the name, so maybe they should just do it and deprive them of it. Call it Sparkdown or Harkdown or something so the connection is still apparent and move on.

mikeash 12y ago

All this fuss over a name. A name that the purported owner hasn't enforced before. A name that's been used by hundreds of other projects. A name that's been thoroughly genericized, and is descriptive of the project. I can see why Gruber is upset, but why does anybody else feel the need to be upset for him?

jhamdotme 12y ago

In his previous article (http://spinhalf.net/typos/ http://spinhalf.net/typos/), he rails against typos and about how horrible they are for our comprehension. Not surprisingly, he messes up himself: “I immediately loose my train of thought.” Me too, man. Me too.

bshimmin 12y ago
As I finished reading his piece on Markdown (with which I agreed wholeheartedly), my eyes glanced down through the next heading, "Typos", through the date, and landed on "efficeint".

wrs 12y ago

Is the solution as simple as changing the name to "Interoperable Markdown"? Markdown interoperability is not now and has never been a goal of Gruber's -- indeed he seems to celebrate the lack of it. Use of the name "<adjective> Markdown" for incompatible derivatives has been accepted for many years. So replacing the word "Standard" with an explicit description of the difference ("Interoperable") between plain old Markdown (whatever that is, since it's not well-defined) and this must be OK, right?

pkamb 12y ago
> Only two maybes I’ve thought of: Strict Markdown or Pedantic Markdown. “Strict” still doesn’t seem right. https://twitter.com/gruber/status/507615356295200770 https://twitter.com/gruber/status/507615356295200770

X-Istence 12y ago

If Standard Markdown doesn't use a single line of code from the original Markdown, how are the license terms being violated? I didn't see any mention of Standard Markdown being an modification to the original Markdown code base.

tuananh 12y ago

The whole ideal of open-sourcing things is that to allow community to further improve it. got pissed over a name because others do a better job than you at maintaining it is a dick. I'm with Jeff and the gang on this.

byuu 12y ago

A similar situation happened to me, but obviously on a smaller scale. I added support for using pixel shaders on emulated video game output, but rather than have separate files for the vertex and fragment shaders, I put the pair into an XML file, and also included settings for min/mag filter, texture format, etc there as well; so that it was all self-contained as a single file that you could paste on a forum. I released this, and some other people liked the idea, but wanted it to support multiple shader passes. Which was great! I wanted to add this, but had a lot of much higher priority items on my plate and couldn't get to it quickly enough. So they went ahead and added multi-pass, texture lookup, reflection, and a whole bunch of other neat features without consulting me, released their own software and then called it "version 1.1", while continuing to support my spec as "version 1.0" The results were obvious: lots of users coming to me to ask why their XML shaders weren't working, which turned out to be because they were using a different standard. Shader writers began targeting 1.1 syntax even without using any additional features, which needlessly took away compatibility with my own program. This wouldn't have been so bad, I could have just supported their new spec once I had time, except that they took the spec in a direction I felt was flawed and against the spirit of it. Referencing external texture files which created file naming conflicts (shader A and shader B both loading their own separate versions of texture.png), losing the ability to post them as inline text on forums, having very inconsistent syntax to what I had been doing, features that were vague in their combinatorial effects, etc. I ultimately had to abandon my own (retroactively named for me) "version 1.0" specification and start on an entirely new format to resolve that ambiguity. They were certainly in the right and clear to do the work that I wouldn't, but I do regret that they took my name, and ended up causing a lot of confusion for end users. And now I worry about this happening to all of my formats (I have a markup format, a delta-based binary diff tool, the new multi-pass shader format, and a few others.) I could try and come up with some licensing term that would most certainly get all of my software kicked out of Debian's main repositories; but there's really no way for me to stop anyone from fragmenting my specifications again, as I simply don't have the money nor desire to trademark things and attempt to sue people for enforcement. So, with that said ... I'm with John Gruber on this. If he is asking them to change the name, they should change the name. It's just the polite thing to do. Even if Gruber is a terrible steward, he created it. Keeping Markdown in the name is clearly just intended to capitalize on the success of the format, which they themselves did not earn.

eik3_de 12y ago

Guys, just rename "Standard Markdown" to Marky, leave Gruber sit on his Markdown name and move on. MacFarlane, GitHub, meteor, reddit and Atwood/stackexchange can let the world know that "markdown" is now legacy and the future lies in Marky

gojomo 12y ago

Let's fix this by calling it 'RSS 2.1'.

barraponto 12y ago

Voldemark, the markup language that cannot be named.

BerislavLopac 12y ago

I don't think that's an issue of control. Quite the contrary, Gruber wants nobody to have the control, and he doesn't want the language to be standardized, as he believes that it will prevent it from evolving and expanding on its own. He didn't complain about MultiMarkdown or GitHub Flavored Markdown, because those examples of precisely that evolution. The problem with "Standard Markdown" is that it implies "the one true way", and gives a (theoretical at least) power to a relatively small group to dictate what is Markdown-kosher and what isn't.