Posted by
chrisd
on from the vim-is-the-one-true-editor dept.
vimbigot writes "A nice summary of where Vim 6.0 has come from, with some insights into Bram Moolenaar's thoughts on Open Source, Charityware and large cooperative software projects. (a bit of irony in the `powered by emacs logo at the bottom !')"
OK, Vim is a solid, impressive piece of work. I use it every day. And Moolenaar rocks, both for his software work and the way he's used it to bring attention to his work in Uganda.
But let's not misunderstand why Vim is so popular. It has nothing to do with "keeping your hands on the keyboard." Nowadays a hacker needs a robust, reliable, scriptable, GUI-aware text editor, preferably cross-platform. There's lots of wanabees, but only two serious contenders: EMACS and Vim.
Now, neither EMACS nor Vim is really a good GUI program. The original design of both was for text terminals. (Some minor Vi features only make sense on the budget-priced Lear-Siegler ADM3a terminal that was standard at Berkeley when Bill Joy was there; I gather RMS used something rather more baroque.) That means lots of "editing modes" -- exactly the sort of thing you do not want in a GUI environment. I suppose EMACS is rather less modal than vi/vim, but it's still pretty bad.
I can live with it, mainly because I've had the basic Vi command set memorized longer than most slashdotters have been alive. But I still find it hard to change my mental gears every time I go from Vim to a modeless editor -- even the text box I'm using now. Pressing the ESC key in the wrong context can have nasty consequences!
Re:ViM Author has seen the light
by
then,+it+was+nigh
·
· Score: 2, Flamebait
No, he knows exactly what he's doing.
Alas, he does not; nor, apparently, do you.
He said specifically that he wants to have the power to decide whether
or not someone who's made modifications (and intends to distribute the
resulting binaries) has to release the source for their modifications or
not.
He already has that power, by virtue of being the copyright holder. No
license is needed to give him that power, and no license can take it away
from him.
The GPL does not allow him to decide...
This is a category error. The GPL is a decision on the part of
the copyright holder. If Bram licenses Vim to person X under the GPL, that
is a decision by Bram that person X should not be allowed to distribute
binaries without distributing sources. If Bram believes that person Y
should be allowed to distribute binaries without distributing sources, he
can effect that decision by licensing Vim to person Y under some
other license which specifically grants that permission. You
appear to be asserting that the GPL can somehow deny Bram his authority as
copyright holder to do this.
See, this is why (to answer an earlier assertion by someone else) we claim
that GPL opponents simply don't understand the GPL: all the objections to
the GPL that I've seen demonstrate a misunderstanding of the GPL.
-- sed 's/In Soviet Russia/In NSA America/g' < yakov-smirnoff-jokes.txt
Slashdot Mirror
But let's not misunderstand why Vim is so popular. It has nothing to do with "keeping your hands on the keyboard." Nowadays a hacker needs a robust, reliable, scriptable, GUI-aware text editor, preferably cross-platform. There's lots of wanabees, but only two serious contenders: EMACS and Vim.
Now, neither EMACS nor Vim is really a good GUI program. The original design of both was for text terminals. (Some minor Vi features only make sense on the budget-priced Lear-Siegler ADM3a terminal that was standard at Berkeley when Bill Joy was there; I gather RMS used something rather more baroque.) That means lots of "editing modes" -- exactly the sort of thing you do not want in a GUI environment. I suppose EMACS is rather less modal than vi/vim, but it's still pretty bad.
I can live with it, mainly because I've had the basic Vi command set memorized longer than most slashdotters have been alive. But I still find it hard to change my mental gears every time I go from Vim to a modeless editor -- even the text box I'm using now. Pressing the ESC key in the wrong context can have nasty consequences!
Alas, he does not; nor, apparently, do you.
He already has that power, by virtue of being the copyright holder. No license is needed to give him that power, and no license can take it away from him.
This is a category error. The GPL is a decision on the part of the copyright holder. If Bram licenses Vim to person X under the GPL, that is a decision by Bram that person X should not be allowed to distribute binaries without distributing sources. If Bram believes that person Y should be allowed to distribute binaries without distributing sources, he can effect that decision by licensing Vim to person Y under some other license which specifically grants that permission. You appear to be asserting that the GPL can somehow deny Bram his authority as copyright holder to do this.
See, this is why (to answer an earlier assertion by someone else) we claim that GPL opponents simply don't understand the GPL: all the objections to the GPL that I've seen demonstrate a misunderstanding of the GPL.
sed 's/In Soviet Russia/In NSA America/g' < yakov-smirnoff-jokes.txt