Vim Gives to Charity and Gives Back to Donors

by Lisa Hoover - Jul. 28, 2009Comments (2)

It's no secret that open source community members have big hearts when it comes to giving. From beard-shaving for Tasmanian devils to raising funds that put computers in the hands of impoverished children, charity seems to know no bounds.

Longtime users of the popular open source text editor Vim may already be aware of the charitable generosity of its creator Bram Moolenaar. For those who aren't, it just may persuade someone -- even a diehard Emacs fan -- to give up his or her current editor of choice.

For years, Moolenaar has donated money to ICCF Holland, a program that's helping save Ugandan children who have lost their parents to HIV/AIDS and encouraged Vim users to do the same. When he was hired by Google's Zurich office in 2006, Moolenaar decided that 100% of all donation and registration fees receives for Vim will go directly to ICCF Holland, since he no longer needs any subsidies to keep working on the project.

"I have accepted a job offer and will go back to a full time job in a few months... Fortunately I can spend part of my time on Vim. But it will obviously be less than the past few years when I was working 150% of my time on Vim. I will no longer need sponsorship to survive. Therefore, starting the end of March [2006], all money given for Vim sponsorship and registration will go to the project in Kibaale, Uganda," wrote Moolenaar. To sweeten the deal, he kept the process that placed a greater emphasis on feature requests made by donors over "anonymous lurkers."

Kudos to Moolenaar for a creative way to raise money for a worthy cause and give a nice bonus back to the donors who pledge money. Leave it to the open source community to find such a neat way to open their hearts and wallets to people in need.