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 !')"
It took me several years to actually learn to use Vi(m). How many people actually uses Vim and knows more than how to insert characters delete a line or a character here and there and save the miserable output from this horrid piece of software ?
VIM the only editor
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: -1, Troll
vim owns:-) fuck off emacs niggers why installing an OS if you just want the EDITOR:)
VIm is dog shit!
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: -1, Troll
So is emacs! JOE IS THE WINNER
Even Ms notepad is better than than vim and emacs!
ViM Author has seen the light
by
cscx
·
· Score: -1, Troll
This is taken from http://www.rons.net.cn/english/FSM/vim, the link in the original article. I find it astounding that/. would link to this "blasphmous" piece of work. It's nice that he's shown that helping poor African orphans in Uganda will never been achieved by GNU. Here are a few of his ideas:
I prefer to give users much freedom in using the Vim source code. The main reason to add restrictions is to avoid what happened to Elvis some time ago: someone took the Elvis source code, added a few nice Windows GUI things, and started selling it. Since those changes were not available as source code and most of that editor was still the original Elvis code, that didn't sound fair. Not only because people have to pay one guy for software that someone else made, but also because the author refused to publish the modified source code and allow others to further improve it. That's why I added the restriction that the source code of modifications must be made available to me. That still leaves room for a company to make a modified version of Vim and negotiate with me if their changes must be made public or not. This gives me the right to decide what happens with the software I created.
Why not use the GNU GPL?
The GNU General Public Licence (GPL) is more restrictive. Although it claims to ascertain the freedom of software, it restricts the changes you can make. That is, you can make changes, but when you distribute the modified software, you must make the modified sources available as well. Thus people are not free to keep these changes to themselves. I would say this in fact restricts your freedom. On the other hand, allowing anybody to make changes and keep those changes a secret, even though they profit from the part of the program that wasn't changed, also doesn't sound fair. That's why I decided to add the condition that the changes must be made available to me. I can then decide that these changes are useful for most people, and include them in Vim. Or decide that these changes have only a very small audience, and allow a company to make a bit of money from their work. After all, if the source code of a program must be freely available, it is quite difficult to require users to pay money and make a living out of your work.
I also don't agree with the idea that all software should be free and open-source. All people working on free software that I know somehow make a living out of commercial software, either with a full-time job or by studying to get a job later. Without commercial software, how would these people make a living? I think that free, open-source software and commercial software will co-exist. Most commercial software cannot be open-source, because a company would lose its advantage over competitors. Creating source code is very expensive, and a company would not want to allow others to get the results for free. Since software patents and copyrights are a very weak protection, keeping the source code a secret is still the best choice in most situations. Unfortunately, this means that you are not able to learn from how commercial software was implemented, or add a feature or fix a bug in the program you bought. A solution can be making most of the program open-source, and keeping a small but essential part a secret.
Slashdot Mirror
It took me several years to actually learn to use Vi(m). How many people actually uses Vim and knows more than how to insert characters delete a line or a character here and there and save the miserable output from this horrid piece of software ?
Bodø community site
vim owns :-) fuck off emacs niggers why installing an OS if you just want the EDITOR :)
So is emacs! JOE IS THE WINNER
Even Ms notepad is better than than vim and emacs!
This is taken from http://www.rons.net.cn/english/FSM/vim, the link in the original article. I find it astounding that /. would link to this "blasphmous" piece of work. It's nice that he's shown that helping poor African orphans in Uganda will never been achieved by GNU. Here are a few of his ideas:
I prefer to give users much freedom in using the Vim source code. The main reason to add restrictions is to avoid what happened to Elvis some time ago: someone took the Elvis source code, added a few nice Windows GUI things, and started selling it. Since those changes were not available as source code and most of that editor was still the original Elvis code, that didn't sound fair. Not only because people have to pay one guy for software that someone else made, but also because the author refused to publish the modified source code and allow others to further improve it. That's why I added the restriction that the source code of modifications must be made available to me. That still leaves room for a company to make a modified version of Vim and negotiate with me if their changes must be made public or not. This gives me the right to decide what happens with the software I created.
Why not use the GNU GPL?
The GNU General Public Licence (GPL) is more restrictive. Although it claims to ascertain the freedom of software, it restricts the changes you can make. That is, you can make changes, but when you distribute the modified software, you must make the modified sources available as well. Thus people are not free to keep these changes to themselves. I would say this in fact restricts your freedom. On the other hand, allowing anybody to make changes and keep those changes a secret, even though they profit from the part of the program that wasn't changed, also doesn't sound fair. That's why I decided to add the condition that the changes must be made available to me. I can then decide that these changes are useful for most people, and include them in Vim. Or decide that these changes have only a very small audience, and allow a company to make a bit of money from their work. After all, if the source code of a program must be freely available, it is quite difficult to require users to pay money and make a living out of your work. I also don't agree with the idea that all software should be free and open-source. All people working on free software that I know somehow make a living out of commercial software, either with a full-time job or by studying to get a job later. Without commercial software, how would these people make a living? I think that free, open-source software and commercial software will co-exist. Most commercial software cannot be open-source, because a company would lose its advantage over competitors. Creating source code is very expensive, and a company would not want to allow others to get the results for free. Since software patents and copyrights are a very weak protection, keeping the source code a secret is still the best choice in most situations. Unfortunately, this means that you are not able to learn from how commercial software was implemented, or add a feature or fix a bug in the program you bought. A solution can be making most of the program open-source, and keeping a small but essential part a secret.