147 lines
7.4 KiB
Markdown
147 lines
7.4 KiB
Markdown
(This conversation was moved from [[plugins/wmd/discussion]]. --[[anarcat]])
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I've tried to retrieve the wmd-editor source tarball lately, but the site seems offline.
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From what I've read on the Internet, wmd-editor is not (yet?) free software by itself, and its author has gone MIA.
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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/]].
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Given all the above, what about upgrading this plugin to use pagedown instead of wmd? It seem a clear win to me...
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> AFAICS, pagedown is a modified version of WMD. Let's
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> look at its license file: --[[Joey]]
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>
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> A javascript port of Markdown, as used on Stack Overflow
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> and the rest of Stack Exchange network.
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>
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> Largely based on showdown.js by John Fraser (Attacklab).
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>
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> Original Markdown Copyright (c) 2004-2005 John Gruber
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> <http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/>
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>
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>
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> Original Showdown code copyright (c) 2007 John Fraser
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>
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> Modifications and bugfixes (c) 2009 Dana Robinson
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> Modifications and bugfixes (c) 2009-2011 Stack Exchange Inc.
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>
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> Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a
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> copy [...]
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>
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> Ok, so it says it's based on showdown. John Fraser wrote showdown and also
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> WMD, which IIRC was built on top of showdown. (Showdown converts the
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> markdown to html, and WMD adds the editor UI.)
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>
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> I can nowhere find a actual statement of the copyright of showdown or
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> WMD. <http://code.google.com/p/wmd/> has a "MIT License" notice on it,
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> but this is clearly just the license chosen when signing up at google
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> code for the repo that would be used for a rewrite of the code, and the only thing
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> said about the previous 1.0 release of WMD is "use it freely", which is not
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> specific enough to be a grant of license, and is moreover not a free
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> software license, as it does not cover distribution or modification.
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>
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> Which was all covered in the thread here,
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> when StackOverflow decided to start working on pagedown.
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> <http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2008/12/reverse-engineering-the-wmd-editor/>
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> This thread does not give any indication that they ever managed to get
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> a license grant for WMD/showdown. It frankly, does not inspire confidence
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> that the people working on this care about the license.
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>
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> It would probably be pretty easy to adapt the ikiwiki wmd plugin
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> to use pagedown. But without a clear and credible license, why?
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>
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> (Note that I have a wmd-new branch in my ikiwiki git repo that
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> uses <https://github.com/derobins/wmd>, which was an earlier
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> version of pagedown (probably, not entirely clear).)
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>
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> An alternate alternative is markitup: <http://markitup.jaysalvat.com/>
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> It has a clear history and a credible license (MIT or GPL dual license).
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> It's also easily extensible to other formats so could handle rst etc.
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> It does not, however, have a markdown to html converter -- for
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> previewing it has to talk to the server with AJAX.
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> --[[Joey]]
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>> Showdown has a pretty explicit [license.txt file](https://github.com/coreyti/showdown/blob/master/license.txt)
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>> and it basically looks like a BSD license. That license.txt file was imported into
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>> github directly from the upstream showdown source, so it seems credible. That zip file
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>> is still available [on archive.org](http://wayback.archive.org/web/20100612163302/http://attacklab.net/showdown/showdown-v0.9.zip),
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>> and does mention a BSD copyright.
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>>
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>> So Showdown itself is clean: it's free. Nowhere does it say it derives from WMD, or
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>> if it does, it doesn't matter *because* it was made by the same author **and then**
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>> released under that free license. But even then, it does *not* mention being a
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>> derivative of WMD.
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>>
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>> I agree the license behind WMD is murky. One the one hand, the [google code page](https://code.google.com/p/wmd/)
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>> mentions the code will be relicensed under MIT but "for now" we can "use it freely":
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>>
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>> > *I'm refactoring the code, and will be releasing WMD under the MIT license soon. For
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>> now you can download the most recent release (wmd-1.0.1.zip) and use it freely.*
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>>
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>> 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).
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>> Things get a little more murky there: the file doesn't actually mention any copyright
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>> statement, and the code is actually obfuscated, something that is mentionned on the aforementionned
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>> Stack Exchange thread. The [terms and conditions of WMD](http://web.archive.org/web/20100323043113/http://wmd-editor.com/terms)
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>> are pretty hostile however:
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>>
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>>> *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.*
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>>
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>> But one could argue they apply only to WMD, and *not* showdown, which has been
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>> explicitely published under a different license. And maybe that was the whole
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>> point here: the stack exchange people were trying to negociate having the
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>> clear and free version of WMD for their own use, maybe showdown is actually
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>> what came out of this and what allows Stack exchange to do their thing...
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>>
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>> And besides: the point here is that we *can't actually use WMD safely*, but
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>> we **can use pagedown safely!**.
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>>
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>> I tried the plugin: it works, and it works well. It's also fairly trivial to
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>> install the upstream showdown library, which is not shipped with the plugin
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>> (which alleviates all possible copyright problems). You can take test the
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>> plugin at <http://testwiki.anarc.at/>
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>>
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>> There are only three issues I could find during testing:
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>>
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>> 1. two previews are showed (the showdown one and the regular ikiwiki one),
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>> which can be confusing, but is still necessary because the showdown one
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>> doesn't parse ikiwiki directives.
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>> 2. the wiki needs to be rebuilt when the plugin is first activated for the
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>> stylesheets to regenerate. new wikis are not affected, and this can be
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>> deployed massively on farms without user intervention.
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>> 3. on large pages, the edit screen isn't in the first screen, so it's not
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>> obvious we're editing the page, which is also a little confusing - we
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>> would need an anchor in there... Update: a simple patch fixes that...
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>> but in a rather crude way:
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>>
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>> [[!format diff """
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--- a/IkiWiki/Render.pm
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+++ b/IkiWiki/Render.pm
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@@ -87,7 +87,7 @@ sub genpage ($$) {
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my $actions=0;
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if (length $config{cgiurl}) {
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if (IkiWiki->can("cgi_editpage")) {
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- $template->param(editurl => cgiurl(do => "edit", page => $page));
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+ $template->param(editurl => cgiurl(do => "edit", page => $page) . '#editcontent');
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$actions++;
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}
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}
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"""]]
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>> 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:
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>>
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>> #wmd-preview {
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>> position: relative;
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>> margin: 15px auto;
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>> float: left;
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>> width: 50%;
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>> }
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>> form {
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>> position: fixed;
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>> margin-left: 50%;
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>> }
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>>
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>> But this is getting a little crazy and I need to sleep now.
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>>
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>> [[!template id=gitbranch branch=anarcat/pagedown author="[[anarcat]]"]]
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>>
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>> Anyways, let's work on merging that pretty branch already shall we? :) --[[anarcat]]
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