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Last post Author Topic: Markdown (and what do you do when a community outgrows your contribution)  (Read 22201 times)

phitsc

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It's not a license... and several people have used it without prior permission.  And if you follow the thread of posts, they asked.  And he never gave a response.

Where I come from, if someone asks you if they can take something from you, and you do not give a reply, it doesn't automatically mean 'yes'. Neither does allowing someone to take something from you automatically allow anyone to do so.

But don't get me wrong, I don't disagree with you at all. The lack of cooperation on Gruber's part still surprises me. Especially since all they wanted was his consent (well, and the name).

mouser

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This is a really good reminder about the kind of mental time distortion that occurs when you are at a point that you want to release/publish something or pull the trigger on some purchase or event.

I've been there many times, where you get to the point where you are ready to pull the trigger, but then you realize you need to check with someone about something -- and waiting for their reply feels like it is taking forever and it takes all your willpower to hold off pulling the trigger even for 24 hours..  Worse yet, your mind starts playing tricks with you and you become convinced that you know what the other person will say (a feeling that strangely seems to disappear immediately after the purchase/publication).

The lesson is to chill out and wait.  If you've been working on something for 2 years, you can wait a while longer and figure out a way to get into contact with the person.  Don't let your anxiousness to pull the trigger get the best of you.
« Last Edit: September 09, 2014, 09:35 AM by mouser »

wraith808

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It's not a license... and several people have used it without prior permission.  And if you follow the thread of posts, they asked.  And he never gave a response.

Where I come from, if someone asks you if they can take something from you, and you do not give a reply, it doesn't automatically mean 'yes'. Neither does allowing someone to take something from you automatically allow anyone to do so.

But don't get me wrong, I don't disagree with you at all. The lack of cooperation on Gruber's part still surprises me. Especially since all they wanted was his consent (well, and the name).

They weren't trying to take anything from him... that's the thread of thought that I don't understand.

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.

He made Markdown.pl open source.  Then he applied this random license to the open source license.  And no one is calling him on that.  You can't have it both ways... and this is what comes of that.  He even made the rather uninformed quote because of the licensing- "just because Markdown has a great community doesn't make it a community project."

I think one of the large things that should come out of this for developers is to *think* before you license, and understand the ramifications and be OK with it down the line.  Or... don't make it open source.

mwb1100

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Open sourcing something doesn't necessarily mean that the name of a project is up for grabs.

I think there's a good chance (based on my very limited knowledge of IP law), that Gruber has a legal right to "Markdown" as a trademark.  However, even if doesn't have a legal claim, he does still have a moral/ethical/community/goodwill/whatever claim to it, and it shouldn't be co-opted by someone else against his desire.

Now, any number of arguments can be made that's he's being unreasonable, stupid, passive-agressive or worse.  But that still doesn't mean you should be able to take the project name.

Also, I think there are reasonable arguments that can be made that Atwood acted improperly or worse.  Though I do think he's less intransigent (did I spell that word right? did I use that word right?).

I think the current state of things (using the CommonMark name) is a good enough situation, and as I stated before I think that over time, "CommonMark" will become the defacto standard over "Markdown".  Both in terms of the software implementation and in terms of the 'brand' this think becomes commonly known as (ie., people will actually say that an editor or whatever supports "CommonMark").  I think this will happen because CommonMark will be at least as good as Markdown (it's probably already there), and there will ultimately be less confusion about the various flavors.


wraith808

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Open sourcing something doesn't necessarily mean that the name of a project is up for grabs.

Did they try to take the name?  It looked like they made another variation on it to me...?

mwb1100

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Did they try to take the name?

It would be similar to someone setting up a website very similar to DC and calling it "Super DonationCoder".  Whether or not that would be illegal, it wouldn't be right to do without Mouser's permission.  And even if Mouser took DC in a direction that many people didn't agree with, it wouldn't be right.

wraith808

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Did they try to take the name?

It would be similar to someone setting up a website very similar to DC and calling it "Super DonationCoder".  Whether or not that would be illegal, it wouldn't be right to do without Mouser's permission.  And even if Mouser took DC in a direction that many people didn't agree with, it wouldn't be right.

That comparison is pretty specious.  But Ok... taking it there...

So what about Github Flavored Markdown?  Or MultiMarkdown?  Or any of the other various flavors?  They neither requested nor got anything tacit or otherwise in the way of approval.  And... I could go through linking a whole lot of conversations from very long ago, in which they've tried to get Gruber onboard, and stated that they weren't trying to usurp anything from him.

But just as with discussions of the past of CommonMark, this particular discussion has run its course, I think.  Onward!  :Thmbsup:

mwb1100

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Onward!   :Thmbsup: