Bram Moolenaar was a Dutch software engineer best known as the creator and lifelong maintainer of the Vim text editor. The Vim project’s own credits, preserved in the editor’s intro help file, state plainly that “Most of Vim was created by Bram Moolenaar” and describe him as Vim’s “creator and benevolent dictator until his passing (3 August 2023).” The official README on github.com/vim/vim likewise credits him as the main author responsible for most of the editor.
Moolenaar began the work that became Vim in the late 1980s. Wanting a vi-style editor on his Amiga, he started from the source of an existing vi clone (Stevie) and rewrote and extended it, releasing Vim publicly in 1991 under the name Vi IMproved. He continued steering the project for more than three decades, personally reviewing changes, writing much of the documentation, and acting as the project’s final decision-maker on design.
A distinctive part of Moolenaar’s legacy is the charityware model he attached to Vim. Rather than charging for the editor, he asked users who found it valuable to donate to ICCF Holland, a small Dutch foundation he founded and served as treasurer for. The foundation’s own site describes him as “the driving force behind ICCF Holland” and notes that “many donations come in from the community surrounding the VIM software that Bram developed.” The funds support the Kibaale Children’s Centre in the poor south of Uganda, providing education and medical care.
Moolenaar died on 3 August 2023. The announcement of his death was made through the Vim community, and his passing is recorded directly in Vim’s own documentation. ICCF Holland’s site notes that following the loss of its founder the foundation is winding down, transferring its activities to a sister charity, while the Vim project continued under new maintainers. Through Vim itself and the community fork Neovim, his modal editing tooling remains in daily use across the software world, and his charityware approach stands as a well-known example of coupling free software with a charitable cause.