Few contribute so meaningfully to the world through software as Bram did. I donated an amount as if I were purchasing vim as an expensive commercial text editor.

For most death announcements on HN, I have to look up who they were. Not this one. I greatly appreciate his work and contributions to the world.

For everyone reading this who has ever adored vim, or any of the editors that would go on to be inspired by vim, I can think of no better tribute to Bram than to make a donation to the charity that he spent the better part of his life advocating for.

Thanks for bringing this up! It was a good reminder for me to donate. May he rest in peace.

Bram had been spending over 30 years on Vim; and not just "the occasional patch/bugfix", but significant amounts, and almost every single day for some years.

The number of people who spent that much time working on Open Source is very small, and the number of people who have spent that much time purely in their spare time is smaller still. In fact, I don't really know of anyone who even comes close to Bram.

The number of people who spent this much time volunteering for anything is very small.

Bram's effort on Vim was phenomenal and exceptional by any standard.

> and the number of people who have spent that much time purely in their spare time (i.e. not as part of their job, like Torvalds or van Rossum) is smaller still.

I agree, but the fact that there's a non-zero amount of people doing it shouldn't be overlooked. For example maintainer of qutebrowser (who also happen to be in pytest core team) and apart from a teaching job at an university a couple of months per year, he's working full time on OSS. The main characteristics they share (at least those I met) seem to be a deep love for the craft, a deep love for people, and be virtually unfazed by the amount of money they can make if they weren't doing that.

I don't know if Bram's family has this thread or is reading it, but the extent to which his work has impacted the software development community is enormous.

Vim was one of the first pieces of software I learned when I switched to Linux in college. It was tricky at first, then it delighted me to no end. It remains a daily part of my life nearly 20 years later, and I'm still learning more about it every single year.

I can't count the number of times I wish I could drop out of insert mode in normal web browser text boxes.

Bram's insistence of donating his earnings to helping the children of Uganda is also incredibly selfless, and it's impossible to mention him without bringing this up [1].

We'll miss you Bram. We'll be learning from you for decades to come.

[1] https://www.vim.org/sponsor/faq.php

readline vi mode, vimperator and pentadactyle are a testimony

> I can't count the number of times I wish I could drop out of insert mode in normal web browser text boxes.

You can, if you really want to:

https://github.com/glacambre/firenvim

Thanks for posting the donation link and the reminder, I've made a donation as well.

Vim has shaped so many aspects of my professional life; I'll forever be grateful to Bram for his work and contributions. Rest in peace, Bram.

The news made me unexpectedly said. There are not many people that felt so close without ever knowing them, just because I used their software. Thank you for the reminder to donate: the least thing one can do now. I think most of the digital stuff I ever produced in my life was using vim. Software, scripts, websites, theses, a book, I actually even used a plugin to fill out text boxes in the web using vim.

All the stray 'i's in documents or source code in stuff I had to write with other editors give evidence to my dedication. Thank you Bram! May you live forever in vim.

This is a great idea. Bram has made a huge positive impact on the world, even if most people aren't aware of it. I'd love to help make it even bigger.

Edit: Hmm... PayPal seems to throw error after error at me when I try to donate. I'll keep trying.

Yay, PayPal let me through. I just had to turn off uBlock Origin and Privacy Badger... But for Bram, I'm ok with it.

Thanks for the link, should have made a donation years and years ago. Better late than never, I suppose.

I wrote on twitter that vim is a masterpiece. It's the gleaming precise machine tool on which so much of modernity was crafted. It's so hard to quantify Bram's impact, because he did so much through so powerful a force multiplier.

I started as a Unix sysadmin 25 years ago and kept gravitating towards vim. One practical reason is because it paid off to be familiar with vi, which is nearly always still available on just-installed or bare-bones systems. But another is how welcoming and leveling the Vim community was. It was so easy to get great macros and tips, and everyone was just super friendly about it. I remember someone in #vim irc teaching me "gqap" to wrap a paragraph, and they very naturally took the time to explain how it all worked. There was no sneering on from the community. I think Bram's empathy and leadership was a huge part of that attitude in the community.

I'm a regular annual donor on Vim's behalf, and this morning donated another €250 in Bram's memory. People should only donate what they can afford, we all have different means, but I'd encourage folks to work out what a great commercial editor or IDE would have cost them in licensing over their use time, and to consider donating in proportion.

:wq Bram

Since there's a ton of Google employees here - reminder that Google does gift matching for this charity!

Who knows why there's no financial statement for 2022? 2021 is on the home page. https://iccf-holland.org/iccf.html

It looks like Bram was the treasurer, so his medical condition could potentially have something to do with it.

> "I'm doing exactly what he would have wanted me to do, donating to ICCF Holland. If you're a vim/nvim/other edition user, I suggest you to do the same: https://iccf-holland.org/donate.html ."

In view of https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/7FzD7pNm9X68Gp5ZC/why-our-ki...

I'm calling out that I have donated.

I have donated a few times and always got a personal email from Bram in thanks. These were not large amounts by any means.

Rest in Peace, Bram.