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Markdown (and what do you do when a community outgrows your contribution)

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wraith808:
But mouser, they did try to get him involved.  They've been trying for the whole two years that they worked on it.  And he either (a) ignored them or (b) denigrated them on social media.  Look at some of the links involved.

And truthfully, I think if they started out with the commonmark idea, they would have gotten the same reception from him, and others- that they stole it, etc.  By starting out in the Standard Markdown space... they shed a lot of that... then moved to a better space where they could say that they tried to bend over backwards to make the spec part of markdown... but were put off at every turn.

When *finally* (and I use that word for a reason) he stopped being passive-aggressive, and said that he'd not approve any permutation of Markdown with their project, they moved.  And the having to get a blessing from him?  there are so many uses of markdown in a name that he had nothing to do with.  I'm sorry... if you want control, don't make it open source, trademark your name, and protect your trademark.  

He used a bastardization of an open source license... and no one is calling him on it is the other thing that's crazy.

But I think Jeff says it best in this particular response:

I do not want stewardship over Markdown. I want it to be a viable, community maintained open source project since millions of people rely on it. That is what open source is supposed to mean.

--- End quote ---

mouser:
They've been trying for the whole two years that they worked on it.
--- End quote ---

I didn't quite get that impression.  I noted that there is a mention of talking with him when they started (2 years ago) -- not clear how serious that attempt to talk was -- and then 2 weeks before release.. But I couldn't tell if they had talked to him any time in between.

Essentially I think we are on the same page -- that when something like this is released as open source, the natural interpretation is that it's going to be a project that the community can improve and evolve forward -- either led by the original creator, or by others entrusted by the community.

And I've already made clear that I believe standardization -- especially in the form it was done here -- is a good and important thing.

So the only real question in my mind is what you do when the original inventor becomes an obstacle to the continuing use and development of the project.

And I think my position is that when this happens, and attempts to convince the original inventor to join the team fails, that perhaps the best solution is to make a clean break from the original name of the invention and come up with a clearly different name -- even though that could lead to some (initial or continuing) confusion for users.

phitsc:
I agree mouser that choosing a different name and just stating that one of the main goals was Markdown compatibility would probably have been better.

wraith808:
And I've already made clear that I believe standardization -- especially in the form it was done here -- is a good and important thing.

So the only real question in my mind is what you do when the original inventor becomes an obstacle to the continuing use and development of the project.

And I think my position is that when this happens, and attempts to convince the original inventor to join the team fails, that perhaps the best solution is to make a clean break from the original name of the invention and come up with a clearly different name -- even though that could lead to some (initial or continuing) confusion for users.

-mouser (September 08, 2014, 03:46 PM)
--- End quote ---

Look at the links in my post above.  Specifically:

https://twitter.com/gruber/status/262287246953164800

https://twitter.com/gruber/status/261650083689426945

He does make it quite clear that he doesn't want to be involved.  He's also very passive aggressive about it.  The later one is after he's said he doesn't want to be involved, they as a courtesy gave it to him to make suggestions and or say anything about it.  That's where the two weeks came from.  It seems a lot like the old if I don't see it and don't acknowledge it, then maybe it will just go away approach.

I agree mouser that choosing a different name and just stating that one of the main goals was Markdown compatibility would probably have been better.

-phitsc (September 08, 2014, 04:08 PM)
--- End quote ---

And that's what they did in the end after he finally made it clear that he wouldn't allow the name to be used under any circumstances.  That's after telling them that he might allow pedantic or strict markdown... which both don't convey what is being done at all.  What makes it even worse is that this is instructions for a parser- but because there are a lot of non-technical people interested in markdown, they don't get that this is what it is for, and that even non CommonMark Markdown will still be able to be parsed just as normal.

mouser:
The good thing that should come out of all of this is that developers should run, not walk, to CommonMark -- and abandon Markdown as rapidly as possible.

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