(This conversation was moved from [[plugins/wmd/discussion]]. --[[anarcat]]) I've tried to retrieve the wmd-editor source tarball lately, but the site seems offline. From what I've read on the Internet, wmd-editor is not (yet?) free software by itself, and its author has gone MIA. But it looks like somebody recently took the step to rewrite a wmd-clone under a saner license, see [[pagedown|http://code.google.com/p/pagedown/source/browse/]]. Given all the above, what about upgrading this plugin to use pagedown instead of wmd? It seem a clear win to me... > AFAICS, pagedown is a modified version of WMD. Let's > look at its license file: --[[Joey]] > > A javascript port of Markdown, as used on Stack Overflow > and the rest of Stack Exchange network. > > Largely based on showdown.js by John Fraser (Attacklab). > > Original Markdown Copyright (c) 2004-2005 John Gruber > > > > Original Showdown code copyright (c) 2007 John Fraser > > Modifications and bugfixes (c) 2009 Dana Robinson > Modifications and bugfixes (c) 2009-2011 Stack Exchange Inc. > > Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a > copy [...] > > Ok, so it says it's based on showdown. John Fraser wrote showdown and also > WMD, which IIRC was built on top of showdown. (Showdown converts the > markdown to html, and WMD adds the editor UI.) > > I can nowhere find a actual statement of the copyright of showdown or > WMD. has a "MIT License" notice on it, > but this is clearly just the license chosen when signing up at google > code for the repo that would be used for a rewrite of the code, and the only thing > said about the previous 1.0 release of WMD is "use it freely", which is not > specific enough to be a grant of license, and is moreover not a free > software license, as it does not cover distribution or modification. > > Which was all covered in the thread here, > when StackOverflow decided to start working on pagedown. > > This thread does not give any indication that they ever managed to get > a license grant for WMD/showdown. It frankly, does not inspire confidence > that the people working on this care about the license. > > It would probably be pretty easy to adapt the ikiwiki wmd plugin > to use pagedown. But without a clear and credible license, why? > > (Note that I have a wmd-new branch in my ikiwiki git repo that > uses , which was an earlier > version of pagedown (probably, not entirely clear).) > > An alternate alternative is markitup: > It has a clear history and a credible license (MIT or GPL dual license). > It's also easily extensible to other formats so could handle rst etc. > It does not, however, have a markdown to html converter -- for > previewing it has to talk to the server with AJAX. > --[[Joey]] >> Showdown has a pretty explicit [license.txt file](https://github.com/coreyti/showdown/blob/master/license.txt) >> and it basically looks like a BSD license. That license.txt file was imported into >> github directly from the upstream showdown source, so it seems credible. That zip file >> is still available [on archive.org](http://wayback.archive.org/web/20100612163302/http://attacklab.net/showdown/showdown-v0.9.zip), >> and does mention a BSD copyright. >> >> So Showdown itself is clean: it's free. Nowhere does it say it derives from WMD, or >> if it does, it doesn't matter *because* it was made by the same author **and then** >> released under that free license. But even then, it does *not* mention being a >> derivative of WMD. >> >> I agree the license behind WMD is murky. One the one hand, the [google code page](https://code.google.com/p/wmd/) >> mentions the code will be relicensed under MIT but "for now" we can "use it freely": >> >> > *I'm refactoring the code, and will be releasing WMD under the MIT license soon. For >> now you can download the most recent release (wmd-1.0.1.zip) and use it freely.* >> >> That zip file is again offline, but it's also [on archive.org](http://web.archive.org/web/20101226145228/http://wmd-editor.com/downloads/wmd-1.0.1.zip). >> Things get a little more murky there: the file doesn't actually mention any copyright >> statement, and the code is actually obfuscated, something that is mentionned on the aforementionned >> Stack Exchange thread. The [terms and conditions of WMD](http://web.archive.org/web/20100323043113/http://wmd-editor.com/terms) >> are pretty hostile however: >> >>> *All rights reserved. You may not duplicate, copy, or reuse any portion of the HTML/CSS, JavaScript, or visual design elements or concepts without express written permission from AttackLab.* >> >> But one could argue they apply only to WMD, and *not* showdown, which has been >> explicitely published under a different license. And maybe that was the whole >> point here: the stack exchange people were trying to negociate having the >> clear and free version of WMD for their own use, maybe showdown is actually >> what came out of this and what allows Stack exchange to do their thing... >> >> And besides: the point here is that we *can't actually use WMD safely*, but >> we **can use pagedown safely!**. >> >> I tried the plugin: it works, and it works well. It's also fairly trivial to >> install the upstream showdown library, which is not shipped with the plugin >> (which alleviates all possible copyright problems). You can take test the >> plugin at >> >> There are only three issues I could find during testing: >> >> 1. two previews are showed (the showdown one and the regular ikiwiki one), >> which can be confusing, but is still necessary because the showdown one >> doesn't parse ikiwiki directives. >> 2. the wiki needs to be rebuilt when the plugin is first activated for the >> stylesheets to regenerate. new wikis are not affected, and this can be >> deployed massively on farms without user intervention. >> 3. on large pages, the edit screen isn't in the first screen, so it's not >> obvious we're editing the page, which is also a little confusing - we >> would need an anchor in there... Update: a simple patch fixes that... >> but in a rather crude way: >> >> [[!format diff """ --- a/IkiWiki/Render.pm +++ b/IkiWiki/Render.pm @@ -87,7 +87,7 @@ sub genpage ($$) { my $actions=0; if (length $config{cgiurl}) { if (IkiWiki->can("cgi_editpage")) { - $template->param(editurl => cgiurl(do => "edit", page => $page)); + $template->param(editurl => cgiurl(do => "edit", page => $page) . '#editcontent'); $actions++; } } """]] >> ideally, we would show the edit box next to the page preview... And there's a way to do that too! But it requires some more CSS hackery, like [this](http://css-tricks.com/scrollfollow-sidebar/), for example: >> >> #wmd-preview { >> position: relative; >> margin: 15px auto; >> float: left; >> width: 50%; >> } >> form { >> position: fixed; >> margin-left: 50%; >> } >> >> But this is getting a little crazy and I need to sleep now. >> >> [[!template id=gitbranch branch=anarcat/pagedown author="[[anarcat]]"]] >> >> Anyways, let's work on merging that pretty branch already shall we? :) --[[anarcat]]