"The fact that they're involving him at all is a courtesy, a well-intentioned mistake. A mistake I definitely would have made too."
These are necessary mistakes. Better to have tried to get John Gruber on board and failed, than to not have tried.
That way they can always point at the conversation to show that they did try, but Gruber was not interested in collaborating. Otherwise, John Gruber always have the "they stole Markdown from me. They didn't even ask me. I was willing to collaborate." excuse.
It's an open source thing, try to work within the community before forking. Forking is a last resort. This might get to the point where forking is now a reasonable course of action.
These are necessary mistakes. Better to have tried to get John Gruber on board and failed, than to not have tried.
That way they can always point at the conversation to show that they did try, but Gruber was not interested in collaborating. Otherwise, John Gruber always have the "they stole Markdown from me. They didn't even ask me. I was willing to collaborate." excuse.
It's an open source thing, try to work within the community before forking. Forking is a last resort. This might get to the point where forking is now a reasonable course of action.