Markdown licensing

[John Gruber]

david scotson <david.scotson at gmail.com> wrote on 12/13/04 at 9:59am:

> This problem (and a few others) would, I think, be solved by a
> comprehensive test suite, which I believe is in the works. This would
> flag up where people have deviated from the 'spec' (Perl Markdown by
> default I assume) wether intentionally or not.

Better would be to better specify the syntax in plain English, and
allow that to stand as the definitive reference. For the most part,
my Perl implementation is a complete implementation of the syntax
documentation, but the problem is that bits of the spec bend over
backwards to compensate for limitations in my implementation. (I'm
thinking specifically about Markdown's rigid rules regarding nested
HTML blocks -- those rules are written to describe how my
implementation works, not how the syntax rules "ought to be".)


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

What I'd like to ask is for people not to use the name "Markdown" if
they decide to change the syntax rules. However, if they attempt to
implement the standard syntax but a few bugs or edge cases or
unimplemented features keep them from passing the test suite,
perhaps they can call it a Markdown implementation so long as they
note the known deficiencies.

-J.G.