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>if you want to really use it [org-mode] anywhere but inside emacs, good luck to you

I wonder if org could be ported to provide a language server via lsp, and in so doing become cross-platform?

Org really is a superior markup format.

Can it be used without elisp?

It can be used as a "dumb" format and even then it's superior to e.g. markdown.

The real magic requires code of course, but it doesn't have to be elisp.

Pandoc can read from and export to Org format. As well, there are a number of Org parsing libraries in other languages; see https://alphapapa.github.io/org-almanac/#Parsing