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by loup-vaillant 4973 days ago
He won't enforce it. How about that elevator pitch:

> Makeup is a standardized version of John Gruber's Markdown. It has a formal specification, a reference implementation, and an exhaustive test suite. It also handles edge cases in a more sensible way than the original Markdown.

I think "Markdown" as a name can no longer be killed. The same holds for Markdown as a format. Alternate implementations will exist for a long time, and they will be referred to as "Markdown implementations", at least informally.

And so will whatever Markdown based "standard".

I probably crossed the line by suggesting "<qualifier> Markdown" as an official name. But as an informal name, it will be used, and John Gruber won't be able to do a thing about it.

By the way, I can't fathom why he wouldn't want Markdown spin-offs to be called "Markdown" as well. That name is his legacy. A standard would make sure to preserve it. As for his Perl implementation, it belongs to the museum, to be glorified as pioneering. But for actual use, Perl is now obsolete.