Vim Classic 8.3 Launched as an AI-Free Vim Fork

Vim Classic 8.3 Launched as an AI-Free Vim Fork (linuxiac.com) 16 This month saw the release of Vim Classic 8.3, the first stable version of a new long-term support fork of Vim maintained without generative AI tools. Linuxiac reports: The release is based on Vim 8.2.0148 and includes selected bug fixes and patches backported from later upstream Vim releases. Vim Classic was first announced by [SourceHut's CEO/founder] Drew DeVault in March 2026 after he objected to LLM-assisted development in Vim and Neovim. In his announcement, DeVault said he no longer wanted to use software developed with LLM assistance and introduced Vim Classic as a fork for users who want to continue using Vim without that involvement... Vim Classic follows Vim's charityware model and continues to direct users toward Bram Moolenaar's long-running support for children in Uganda. The release is distributed as a signed source tarball from SourceHut, while future important announcements are expected through the project's mailing list. "Vim is important to me..." DeVault wrote in March. (DeVault even tattooed "hjkl" on his right arm.) "[A]lmost 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." But DeVault wrote that he also cares about AI's impact on air pollution, fresh water supplies, global supply chains, and the working conditions of miners in African companies: 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... 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. I don't think it's cute that someone vibe coded "battleship" in VimScript. I think it's more important that we stop collectively pretending that we don't understand how awful all of this is. I don't want to use software which has slop in it. I do what I can to avoid it, and sadly even Vim now comes under scrutiny in that effort as both Vim and NeoVim are relying on LLMs to develop the software... To keep my conscience clear, and continue to enjoy the relationship I have with this amazing piece of software, I have forked Vim... Since forking from this base, I have backported a handful of patches, most of which address CVEs discovered after this release, but others which address minor bug fixes. I also penned a handful of original patches which bring the codebase from this time up to snuff for building it on newer toolchains... I invite you to use Vim Classic, if you feel the same way as me, and to maintain it with me, contributing the patches you need to support your own use cases. "Vim is important to me..." DeVault wrote in March. (DeVault even tattooed "hjkl" on his right arm.) "[A]lmost 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." But DeVault wrote that he also cares about AI's impact on air pollution, fresh water supplies, global supply chains, and the working conditions of miners in African companies: 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... 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. I don't think it's cute that someone vibe coded "battleship" in VimScript. I think it's more important that we stop collectively pretending that we don't understand how awful all of this is. I don't want to use software which has slop in it. I do what I can to avoid it, and sadly even Vim now comes under scrutiny in that effort as both Vim and NeoVim are relying on LLMs to develop the software... To keep my conscience clear, and continue to enjoy the relationship I have with this amazing piece of software, I have forked Vim... Since forking from this base, I have backported a handful of patches, most of which address CVEs discovered after this release, but others which address minor bug fixes. I also penned a handful of original patches which bring the codebase from this time up to snuff for building it on newer toolchains... I invite you to use Vim Classic, if you feel the same way as me, and to maintain it with me, contributing the patches you need to support your own use cases. How a compiler differs from an LLM (Score:3) His hand written "artisan" code is being turned into machine code by a computer anyway. A compiler is a deterministic process that runs locally on a modest home computer in reasonable time without needing an expensive NVIDIA GPU, doesn't regurgitate memorized copyrighted code from its training set, and doesn't boil the oceans in a datacenter for training plus use. Re: How a compiler differs from an LLM (Score:2) Say (Score:3) Is there a list of other text editors that don't have AI ? Re: (Score:2) I don't know about a list but Emacs just adopted a no-AI position. On a wider level, Open Slopware [codeberg.org] is the site to check if you're about to adopt an application and would like to ensure the modifications being made to it are by humans. Be aware the maintainers have been harassed multiple times by AI addicts so... keep tracking the discussions and be prepared in future to have to DDG "OpenSlopware" to find the latest version. Re: (Score:2) Emacs just adopted a no-AI position Emacs rejected having another feature??? FFS, it's the original bloatware. It took decades for Eclipse to come around and supplant it as far as code editors go. Maybe ^a^i was already taken for some other function. So now emacs has everything but the kitchen sink and AI. Re: Say (Score:2) Emacs! Even AI can't figure out how to count the parentheses in lisp! Different tools for different skills (Score:3) I have talents and handicaps When I took my first programming class, I learned faster and deeper than any of the other students. Evidently, I have a strong talent for code. I can't touch type. I tried to learn and failed. I also failed to learn to play the piano. If I was forced to use vi, I would have failed as a software engineer. But, with an IDE, I have done very well over a 40+ year career. Re: (Score:2) Next big thing... (Score:2) why bother (Score:1) Dilapidated Slashdot (Score:2) Luddites (Score:2) See subject Grabage in / Garbage out, Continue using VIM. (Score:2)