Let's imagine the worst happens: John Gruber explicitely refuses to give up the name "Markdown", and to bless any standardization process. Which would then need another name.
Ideally the name should be clearly different than the original one, and clearly signal the underlying spec is the same, only better (of course, the actual spec better live to that expectation).
"Rockdown" sounds cool, but it doesn't work. Sure, it rocks, but it's doesn't say "you should use me, not my obsolete father".
An obvious choice is "<qualifier> Markdown". For instance, "Clean Markdown", or "Standard Markdown". We may think that's cheating, but we already talk about "<website> flavoured Markdown". There will soon be another one, that explicitly pretends to be the flavour. Better let the name reflect that. As for the actual Markdown, I guess people will start calling it "Original Markdown".
Now there's little chance, but maybe, maybe John Gruber will still shout that his original version is the standard no matter what. If monsters like Stack-overflow, Reddit, and GitHub make a good "std Markdown" anyway, no one will believe him.
Anyway, enough with the name. Let's just write that BNF. A reference implementation in something like MetaII or OMeta will then be a piece of cake. If I ever do that on my own, I'll call it "Strict Markdown". Because I don't like when obvious errors in my Markdown code produce unintended output instead of an error message (major culprits are links and emphases).
> 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.
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.
Does this mean all the current "Markdown" implementations out there are in violation of this licence term[1]?
How would one reasonably convey that their formatter is markdown-capable?
It would seem to me that there's a significant difference between "Bloopdown - a Markdown compliant formatter for blah" and "Markdown v3.Ice-cream-pony"; the latter clearly trading off the name of the original, while the former is descriptive.
I'm not sure where "$X Flavored Markdown" falls on that scale, although I'd be surprised if something like GitHub hadn't sought permission or clarified the naming provisions.
[1] Having checked a couple of different projects, none of them mention having sought or received that permission, but I suppose they might have
I don't know about the USA, but here in France, one can have a right to trademark even when it's not officially registered. The main requirement is to show that you have established a de facto brand.
Ideally the name should be clearly different than the original one, and clearly signal the underlying spec is the same, only better (of course, the actual spec better live to that expectation).
"Rockdown" sounds cool, but it doesn't work. Sure, it rocks, but it's doesn't say "you should use me, not my obsolete father".
An obvious choice is "<qualifier> Markdown". For instance, "Clean Markdown", or "Standard Markdown". We may think that's cheating, but we already talk about "<website> flavoured Markdown". There will soon be another one, that explicitly pretends to be the flavour. Better let the name reflect that. As for the actual Markdown, I guess people will start calling it "Original Markdown".
Now there's little chance, but maybe, maybe John Gruber will still shout that his original version is the standard no matter what. If monsters like Stack-overflow, Reddit, and GitHub make a good "std Markdown" anyway, no one will believe him.
Anyway, enough with the name. Let's just write that BNF. A reference implementation in something like MetaII or OMeta will then be a piece of cake. If I ever do that on my own, I'll call it "Strict Markdown". Because I don't like when obvious errors in my Markdown code produce unintended output instead of an error message (major culprits are links and emphases).