Editorenschisma

Vor langer Zeit hatte ein Exzentriker ein Gmail-Interface auf Vim-Basis implementiert, aber Vim selbst schien unter seinem BDFL gegen Verirrungen gefeit zu sein.

Nur wenige Jahre nach Brams Tod allerdings geraten seine Nachfolgerinnen auf Abwege, und der LLM-Sündenfall im Vim-Repo zeitigt erwartbare Reaktionen:

Vim is important to me. I’m using it to write the words you’re reading right now. In fact, almost every word I have ever committed to posterity, through this blog, in my code, all of the docs I’ve written, emails I’ve sent, and more, almost all of it has passed through Vim.

My relationship with the software is intimate, almost as if it were an extra limb. I don’t think about what I’m doing when I use it. All of Vim’s modes and keybindings are deeply ingrained in my muscle memory. Using it just feels like my thoughts flowing from my head, into my fingers, into a Vim-shaped extension of my body, and out into the world. The unique and profound nature of my relationship with this software is not lost on me.

I won’t speculate on how he would have felt about generative AI, but I can say that GenAI is something I care about. It causes a lot of problems for a lot of people. It drives rising energy prices in poor communities, disrupts wildlife and fresh water supplies, increases pollution, and stresses global supply chains. It re-enforces the horrible, dangerous working conditions that miners in many African countries are enduring to supply rare metals like Cobalt for the billions of new chips that this boom demands. And at a moment when the climate demands immediate action to reduce our footprint on this planet, the AI boom is driving data centers to consume a full 1.5% of the world’s total energy production in order to eliminate jobs and replace them with a robot that lies.

Meanwhile, this whole circus is enabling the rising tide of fascism around the world, not only by supercharging propaganda but also by directly financially supporting fascist policies and policymakers. All this to enrich the few, centralize power, reduce competition, and underwrite an enormous bubble that, once it bursts, will ruin the lives of millions of the world’s poor and marginalized classes.

To keep my conscience clear, and continue to enjoy the relationship I have with this amazing piece of software, I have forked Vim. You can find my fork here: Vim Classic.

Drew DeVault betrachtet Vim Classic als complete software, aber der Geist der Sektenbildung ist aus der Flasche – schon kurz darauf gibt es einen zweiten LLM-freien Fork, und das Interesse an älteren Vim-Derivaten wächst. Es steht zu befürchten, dass die orthodoxe Kirche die fortschreitende Zersplitterung des Tastaturcalvinismus nicht ungenutzt lässt und wir in wenigen Jahren nur noch die Wahl zwischen MS Emacs, Apple Emacs und Free Emacs haben werden.