If it's Gruber's currency, it's accumulated in spite of Gruber's best efforts to strangle that particular metaphorical revenue stream. If "Markdown" was just o

If it's Gruber's currency, it's accumulated in spite of Gruber's best efforts to strangle that particular metaphorical revenue stream. If "Markdown" was just one ergonomic markup syntax among many, then yes, a hostile name-takeover would be completely a dick move. However, Markdown won; there's a bazillion slightly-incompatible implementations, and it's not Gruber's baby anymore. Hundreds if not thousands of people have invested a part of their life into Markdown, either by writing an implementation, using one in a larger product, or just taking the time to learn the syntax. While Gruber is the original creator of Markdown and deserves respect for that design achievement, the Markdown community is much, much larger than he is and when the two come into conflict, it's not surprising that Gruber loses.