Maybe we're just too immersed in our own terminology, but to me, "Standard X" (e.g., Standard ML) refers not necessarily to the notion that "our version owns th

Maybe we're just too immersed in our own terminology, but to me, "Standard X" (e.g., Standard ML) refers not necessarily to the notion that "our version owns the concept of X" but that "our version of X is standarized". Common Lisp took a slightly different term, but that really reflected their goal with building the language spec -- they weren't after any old standard, they specifically wanted to incorporate common features from the bunches of different Lisp implementations. Calling this "Common Markdown" doesn't quite capture the right meaning, I think. The thing that makes this weird in that context is that I can't think offhand of any examples where the inventor of "X" has been opposed to the idea of doing anything about the mass of incompatible versions floating around. Usually, you have a language, there are a few implementations, and then everyone gets together to nail down what an "official" version should do. My gut is that at some point, if after a decade of pleading, the maintainer of an "official" version is not stepping up, the community is OK to go on without them, but clearly there are arguments on both sides there.