Hi, I wanted to add some clarification on this topic.

I am Knut Sveidqvist, the inventor of Mermaid and creator of the Mermaid open-source project. I'm also the co-founder of Mermaid Chart.

To address the confusion: Mermaid Chart is not a separate entity "profiting off the name" - it's a commercial offering I created to help sustain the open-source project. Working on Mermaid during evenings and weekends became unsustainable as the project grew. Mermaid Chart allows me to work on what I love full-time while providing resources back to the open-source project. This support will continue to grow as our business matures.

I appreciate your concern about protecting users from deceptive practices. In this case, there is a direct connection between the open-source project and the commercial offering, created by the same founding team.

Thanks for the clarification! Glad you can cater to both worlds.

For diagramming and even UI prototyping I keep getting back to plain old ascii drawings though. Asciiflow.com is fantastic. I just wish they had vim keybindings. It's also great to embed in .md too. Could mermaid generate ascii? It just seems easier to comprehend and doesn't need a separate renderer.