Mick, let's hope for the best. I remember reading that Jean-François Moine refused to take any notice of ABC 2.0, and that it was eventually (about 2010) declared the official standard, apparently without anybody even considering implementing it. (ArtfulCodger professed to "stick to" it - with what software? "Read-only"?) To ABC 2.1, at least JFM complied to a large extent - presumably a case of Muhammad and the Mountain, JFM being the latter -, but the keeper of abc2midi did not seem to bother at all. These two at least had better striven for an agreement.

As much as we want a "non-volatile" new standard, Mudcat should not hail it before enough software has been pledged to support it.