Markdown has become genericized (and was never registered or defended as intellectual property). See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generic_trademark The idea that Gruber has to (or even ever would) sign off on anything is counter to his behavior and stated opinion on the matter. His historical involvement and contemporary non-involvement should not become an impediment or even an issue for markdown-related development. Sincerely, -- Jeff McNeill -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://six.pairlist.net/pipermail/markdown-discuss/attachments/20140710/fef6062a/attachment.html>
I personally agree with this and I would be happy to continue working within the W3C or elsewhere to get a baseline standard defined. On Wed, Jul 9, 2014 at 8:20 PM, Jeff McNeill <jeff at jeffmcneill.com> wrote:> Markdown has become genericized (and was never registered or defended as > intellectual property). See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generic_trademark > > The idea that Gruber has to (or even ever would) sign off on anything is > counter to his behavior and stated opinion on the matter. His historical > involvement and contemporary non-involvement should not become an > impediment or even an issue for markdown-related development. > > Sincerely, > -- > Jeff McNeill > > > _______________________________________________ > Markdown-Discuss mailing list > Markdown-Discuss at six.pairlist.net > http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/markdown-discuss > >-------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://six.pairlist.net/pipermail/markdown-discuss/attachments/20140709/7aaadfef/attachment.html>
If this in response to my earlier comment, as stated, I refer to the behavior of honest people? not the behavior of those who would refer only to the law without consideration of what is clearly right or wrong. Markdown was created by John Gruber, and until he states otherwise, he "owns" the name. To take it away on the basis of rules of intellectual property rules may or may not be legal, but that doesn't make it right. And in fact, Gruber has clearly stated that he did not intend to give away the "Markdown" name: http://blog.gmane.org/gmane.text.markdown.general/month=20080301/page=13 I am not aware of any subsequent recanting of this opinion -- please provide a reference if you believe otherwise. I would not support any effort to coopt the "Markdown" name without Gruber's approval. If this is anyone's intent, count me out. Hopefully the developers of the other major "Sons of Markdown" will follow suit, but I can speak only for myself. FTP -- Fletcher T. Penney fletcher at fletcherpenney.net On Jul 9, 2014, at 9:20 PM, Jeff McNeill <jeff at jeffmcneill.com> wrote:> Markdown has become genericized (and was never registered or defended as intellectual property). See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generic_trademark > > The idea that Gruber has to (or even ever would) sign off on anything is counter to his behavior and stated opinion on the matter. His historical involvement and contemporary non-involvement should not become an impediment or even an issue for markdown-related development. > > Sincerely, > -- > Jeff McNeill > > _______________________________________________ > Markdown-Discuss mailing list > Markdown-Discuss at six.pairlist.net > http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/markdown-discuss-------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://six.pairlist.net/pipermail/markdown-discuss/attachments/20140709/5c80fdc1/attachment.html> -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: smime.p7s Type: application/pkcs7-signature Size: 4903 bytes Desc: not available URL: <http://six.pairlist.net/pipermail/markdown-discuss/attachments/20140709/5c80fdc1/attachment.bin>
I was looking at the license which is shown as applicable to all Gruber versions
at http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/license.
There is a license condition involving the name, although it is difficult to
know when it applies. Certainly violating the condition is a breach of the
license. This peculiarity also makes the required propagation of the license
text tricky since the text must be included ?as is?:
* Neither the name ?Markdown? nor the names of its contributors may be
used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without specific
prior written permission.
The safe thing, of course, is to not use the name ?Markdown? on a derivative
work. I also note that the specifications and other on-line documents, such as
they are, have copyright notices and no indication of license.
I doubt that there has been much attention to this quirk and I, for one, am not
going to go around to see what other so-called Markdown implementations have
done with respect to honoring this license.
-- Dennis E. Hamilton
<mailto:dennis.hamilton at acm.org> dennis.hamilton at acm.org
+1-206-779-9430
<https://keybase.io/orcmid> https://keybase.io/orcmid PGP F96E 89FF
D456 628A
From: Markdown-Discuss [mailto:markdown-discuss-bounces at six.pairlist.net] On
Behalf Of Jeff McNeill
Sent: Wednesday, July 9, 2014 18:20
To: markdown-discuss at six.pairlist.net
Subject: Markdown as genericized
Markdown has become genericized (and was never registered or defended as
intellectual property). See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generic_trademark
The idea that Gruber has to (or even ever would) sign off on anything is counter
to his behavior and stated opinion on the matter. His historical involvement and
contemporary non-involvement should not become an impediment or even an issue
for markdown-related development.
Sincerely,
--
Jeff McNeill
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