[deong]

Generally with language standards though, the major players involved are all part of the standardization process. A slightly different example might be Microsoft developing an incompatible version of Java and calling it Java (until they got smacked into calling it J++ instead).

Honestly, I'm of the opinion that they can call it Standard Markdown if they want to and there's nothing wrong with that. Gruber's opinion is worth something for sure because of his authorship of the original, but there's a statute of limitations. He doesn't think Markdown needs anything more than his Perl script, but the rest of the internet has disagreed pretty strongly for long enough now that it's fine to treat him as absentee.