Vanilla Markdown last versioned in December of 2004. He has moved on; it's just that, now that someone wants to pick up the baton he discarded so long ago, he's

Vanilla Markdown last versioned in December of 2004. He has moved on; it's just that, now that someone wants to pick up the baton he discarded so long ago, he's fussed about someone else getting the benefit of what has heretofore served him as a neat, low-effort little generator of social-marketing capital. I might even have some sympathy for that perspective, if not for the fact that his disinterest in doing anything with Markdown has resulted in such a broad range of subtly incompatible forks, thus complicating many people's lives, mine included, for what strikes me as frankly no good reason at all. Let him sue, if he likes, or let him keep unfavorably impressing people with public bitching and moaning -- or let him do the sensible thing, if he hasn't yet entirely foreclosed that possibility, and try to walk back his recent bitter outbursts in favor of a public opinion on the lines of "I sure wish I'd had the time to do this sort of thing before now! But I'm glad to see such a strong community carrying forward the idea I came up with so long ago." But to leave Markdown in the dust for a decade, then get all grabby again all of a sudden for what look more and more like the most transparently shallow of reasons, is just churlish.