Markdown licensing

[european bob]

On Mon, 2004-12-13 at 09:59 +0000, david scotson wrote:
> > (First thought is; is this change for change's sake? Or is there
> > actually some evidence people need a licence change?)
> 
> I was recently looking into the Ruby implementations of Markdown and
> read a comment where someone (reluctantly) chose RedCloth (primarily
> Textile) over BlueCloth (Markdown) for licensing reasons.

Yes, but that's hearsay. I'm actually asking for evidence ;)

Markdown.pl is not a plugin that you integrate into things; you just
shell out to it and pipe text through it. The only reason you might want
a BSD licensed version of it is because you want to make your own
proprietary version of it; integrating it into proprietary products is
already possible. I don't think anyone is really going to be able to
make a sound case that proprietary versions of Markdown are worthwhile.

Moving away from the GPL seems somewhat akin to throwing the baby out
with the bathwater; the GPL's benefits are more than just the protective
copyleft (the patents clause, for example). 

> In conjunction with this, perhaps asking people not to use the name
> Markdown unless they intend to be 100% compatible is an option?

I think that's a solution in search of a problem, as I already
indicated ;)

-- bob.

PS. The guy who chose RedCloth over BlueCloth may want to think again; I
just looked at RedCloth and it doesn't seem to have a valid copyright
statement or licence. So, at least BlueCloth is distributable (possibly
thanks to the GPL; it is one of the few licences which comes with
easy-to-understand usage instructions).