As a Neovim user, this stopped me dead with painful realization: I may have suffered the same thing but didn't realize it. There was a time when I could not undo something, and it was after a Neovim upgrade.
Unlike Dr. Chisnall, I started my editor journey on Neovim, so it wasn't a transition that bit me. However, if the format of the persistent undo file is unstable, and Neovim just deletes it when it doesn't recognize the previous format, then it seems conceivable (to me) that an upgrade after changing the format would delete the file too.
Ouch. This is making me think about getting off of Neovim. Yes, FOSS comes as-is, but if there's an alternative...
cdmckay 16 minutes ago [-]
It’s such an odd design decision.
I could see ignoring the old undo data or warning before discarding it but just silently wiping it is so user hostile it’s hard to comprehend.
antonkochubey 11 minutes ago [-]
Sorry for my ignorance, but what is the usefulness of undo persistence after a IDE restart? Don't you normally save your changes and finish a piece of work before exiting an DE?
jeremyjh 6 minutes ago [-]
The whole point of undo is that you realize you made a mistake later. If you've done that after you've saved your changes and exited the program, you'd have no expectation of undo still working unless you've enabled this feature.
It doesn't matter whether or not you can think of a reason you would want to enable it, but it should be pretty trivial to do so. Once you've enabled it, it should work.
drfloyd51 4 minutes ago [-]
The article gave 2 examples.
I can give some as well. IDE crashes. Computer reboots at an undesired time. Even if my work is saved, I am not “finished”. I would like my undo history to extend before file / open time.
traverseda 6 minutes ago [-]
I often use it to edit system config files, often on embedded devices where I don't have my git credentials setup, or on servers. In these cases we're already not in an ideal world, I don't have good reliable version control or change management in place. In those less-than-ideal worlds, having proper undo history is nice.
prerok 5 minutes ago [-]
Most apps don't have it, so you might not be used to it, but have you never wished that you could undo the changes you made after you restarted the program?
Moreover, the vim history tracking is amazingly advanced. It's almost like a mini version control system. I highly recommend getting to know it.
dezgeg 6 minutes ago [-]
If your session / computer crashes, for one.
sdcfgy 1 hours ago [-]
I've used vim since the first time it appeared in Debian repos. I have been told a thousand times that NeoVim is better, more modern and solves many (conveniently never cited) issues. I just ignored it and carried on. Feeling terribly vindicated at this point as it's a feature I use regularly and have no idea that it would be an issue in NeoVim.
kps 28 minutes ago [-]
I've used vi and nvi and (now) vim, and tried neovim, but :! is broken and “Conform to POSIX vi” is one of their “Non-goals”.
mahboi 19 minutes ago [-]
I've never used NeoVim because Vim has been good enough.
WesolyKubeczek 1 hours ago [-]
I used neovim because it felt way faster by default. I think treesitter runs circles around what classic vim is using to highlight syntax. That said, I never used both beyond basics, thus no horror stories either.
sdcfgy 1 hours ago [-]
I haven't noticed any performance issues in vim to start with. It was fast on a 75MHz pentium for me. The syntax highlighting, same. No issues. I don't always use that though because I can't be bothered to set up anything much past the basic config.
flohofwoe 23 minutes ago [-]
IIRC vim became really slow with the combination of large source files (thousands of lines of code) and language server plugins (e.g. code completion and live error squiggles).
sdcfgy 5 minutes ago [-]
I had a C program that was a single file 140,000 lines long back then. No issues.
WesolyKubeczek 8 minutes ago [-]
I was using vim-enhanced as red hat-based distro installed it. No customization. No customization of nvim either.
I often use vim or nvim on disposable machines, so persistent undo is something very low on my list of things I want.
everforward 29 minutes ago [-]
At one point vim lacked asynchronous plugins. If a plugin was running a builder or linter it locked the editor up (from what I recall).
That fell apart when people wanted vim to do some more modern IDE kind of things like all the “… on save” stuff (build on save, test, lint, etc). I think LSP support is native in neovim as well.
I believe vim merged asynchronous plugin support a while back though, so I’m not sure how different they really are anymore.
sdcfgy 4 minutes ago [-]
That seems like solving the wrong problem.
Just run make from another terminal...
debo_ 33 minutes ago [-]
*vimdicated
alphabeta3r56 41 minutes ago [-]
If one really needs an undo in today's day and age, use git.
sdcfgy 3 minutes ago [-]
I don't use git. I actually have something still using RCS.
leobuskin 33 minutes ago [-]
It’s two different dimensions in this case. VCS doesn’t preserve your local history (in JetBrains’ terms) of changes (and it wasn’t meant to by design)
20 minutes ago [-]
0xbadcafebee 22 minutes ago [-]
Someone didn't read the part about wanting a humane interface
natbennett 1 hours ago [-]
I was also a very early user of Neovim.
The way I personally remember it being positioned was “Vim, but with breaking changes.”
tmp_throwaway_q 54 minutes ago [-]
Yeah, this hasn't been a problem since forever (or at least I haven't noticed). They had to break the undo file format a while ago to actually work correctly for byte-level buffer change events (very important for tree sitter and other plugins listening for buffer changes). The undo file format is versioned, too, so it's not just YOLO'd; Neovim has since forever returned an error saying there's a version incompatibility. The outrage here doesn't make a lot of sense to me.
The original author of this post (on Mastodon) appears to have a bone to pick with Neovim since it's "platforming white supremacists"? I couldn't figure out what this meant. Some sort of internet drama I guess.
Feels like opal drama all over again, more than a decade later. Why is the ruby community so uniquely toxic, whichever side you’re on. (Yes I’m aware neovim isn’t a ruby community, but the drama is once again centered on a ruby personality.)
tmp_throwaway_q 39 minutes ago [-]
Gotta be honest, this seems like making a mountain out of a molehill. Yeah, DHH is an awful person. His endorsement was removed from the page pretty quickly, but of course not fast enough to avoid the social media mob handing down their verdict upon the thankless maintainers. I sympathize with the Neovim developer in that thread, the driveby Github commenters with seemingly no other involvement in the project are some of the least well-socialized people alive.
manvillej 29 minutes ago [-]
To be fair, it’s not hard to say “white supremacy is bad and I’m not cool with it”
It took me only 10 seconds to write.
tmp_throwaway_q 27 minutes ago [-]
It's also hard to stay cool and agree with the mob dogpiling you over (tbh) a triviality. Anyone who's had to have difficult conversations in the real world knows that. I'm not going to expect people to respond in the best way to such things (easy to project this expectation when you're an anonymous name in the crowd, though).
wongarsu 38 minutes ago [-]
tl;dr: the website showed the quote “Full-screen Neovim looks cool as hell!” by some programmer with political views. After initial pushback it eventually got removed
elektronika 19 minutes ago [-]
> programmer with political views
It's dishonest to downplay what his "political views" entail. He compared the removal of minorities to pest extermination.
> When wolves get out of control, you shoot them. When gypsies take over public spaces, you deport them.
s1artibartfast 7 minutes ago [-]
What seems to be the problem with that?
If illegal migrants are ruining your city, you should enforce the law. Its not rocket science
I got Streisanded into reading some of his quotes and they dont seem that bad.
bibimsz 44 minutes ago [-]
[flagged]
BarbaryCoast 14 minutes ago [-]
According to the rev history for VIM, persistent undo arrived in version 7.3, released in 2010. So Chisnall may have used it since 2000, but he didn't have persistent undo for at least two of the books he wrote. And it means it wasn't "maintained for almost 20 years", it's at best 16.
But it is a nice feature.
I do that by using version control. I have it hooked to my editor so that "save" is "check in". Now I have persistent, versioned, copies of all my states independent of whatever tools I happen to be using.
dlisboa 1 hours ago [-]
> the attitude that just because something is a persistent file on your filesystem that contains data that you might want is no reason for their program not to delete it meant they had no concept of a duty of care to their users.
That's the wrong way to look at it. NeoVIM has a different concept of care for their users. They're optimizing for another kind of care, more in line with modern expectations, which VIM did not care about (hence the fork).
It's not better or worse, just different.
This same article could've been written about how VIM has no native LSP integration or autocomplete and they don't have duty or care for their users.
pdonis 1 hours ago [-]
Deleting important data without warning is not the same as not providing a feature users might want.
luma 41 minutes ago [-]
There is a flip side to this - is vim encrypting this data it keeps forever? If I delete something I consider sensitive, I might unwittingly be recording that presumed-deleted piece of data to my user profile somewhere to be deleted never.
webstrand 31 minutes ago [-]
That doesn't justify its deletion, it might justify warning the user, but unconditionally deleting data not owned by the app shared with other apps?
MaxBarraclough 31 minutes ago [-]
Vim's persist undo is disabled by default, perhaps for privacy reasons. edit: I see sebzim4500 got there first.
Stop looking for post-hoc justifications for behavior that is clearly wrong.
phoghed 27 minutes ago [-]
Second time in this thread you’re telling other people how to think and behave because they aren’t acting like you
tehwebguy 3 minutes ago [-]
OK and you are doing the dril wise man tweet sincerely
nikanj 3 minutes ago [-]
How could you possibly encrypt it in a way that holds water? Any attacker who cares enough to get your undo file can also get your undo keys, unless you want to wire a whole system of undo-now-requires-password-auth-with-MFA
sebzim4500 32 minutes ago [-]
Not really since the feature is opt in
jeremyjh 39 minutes ago [-]
It is insane that people are defending behavior that is clearly abhorrent just because they like the software. Are the claims even true? If they are, you should be updating your opinions about the person writing this software.
dlisboa 26 minutes ago [-]
Insane? Abhorrent?
Relax for a second. Get some perspective.
jeremyjh 13 minutes ago [-]
My perspective is that the Neovim maintainer implemented a change that would delete data created by another program on other people's computers. They knew this would happen in advance, and it was done anyway.
kebman 5 minutes ago [-]
From Cambridge Dictionary:
```markdown
abhorrent
/əbˈhɒr(ə)nt/
Abhorrent is an adjective that means morally very bad, hateful, or causing strong disgust and loathing.
```
I realise that this causes strong disgust and loathing in you, but can you please expand upon how it's morally very bad to prioritise speed and ease of use over undelete capability in Neovim? Are you unable to make backups or use Git?
18 minutes ago [-]
lokar 23 minutes ago [-]
All they had to do was pick a different file name
dlisboa 18 minutes ago [-]
True. But it’s not like they planned some vengeance against the VIM backup file.
People are making it sound like this is a huge company with a product and not a grouping of curious people with a couple hours of free time on a Sunday.
Most likely they never thought about it, then it broke, then it was not impactful enough to fix on their free time compared to other stuff.
roryirvine 1 minutes ago [-]
But they hold themselves out as being a normal software project, suitable for use by casual users. They even talk about having a "stable release" and advertise various sponsors.
If it's really just a toy with no expectation of not unexpectedly destroying user data then they ought to make that more clear.
jeremyjh 10 minutes ago [-]
They knew about it in advance. They decided people shouldn't care about that data.
Today it's the work of a moment to get a coding agent to change the format of a file for you. I guess the point of this story is supposed to be like the famous Van Halen brown M&Ms contract clause. But the world is changing fast and I think it makes sense to start taking more ownership of your own computing experience, especially when the software you use is open source. If you don't like it, have an agent change it! You don't need to convince a maintainer of anything.
asveikau 4 minutes ago [-]
More like in the LLM era, people are disrespecting the user and not sweating these details with ever increasing velocity. It isn't good.
This story is about software being a slow, deliberate process where a lack of gatekeeping can lead to data loss. This is the type of problem which is getting worse.
skybrian 1 hours ago [-]
Software developers do sometimes make promises to their users, but I think these promises ought to be explicit rather than assumed. You can't simply assume a "duty of care" and expect that other people will understand them the same way you do.
(Or rather, you can, but you will likely be disappointed.)
gchamonlive 20 minutes ago [-]
Am I missing something? Are people using persistent undo as backup?
This seems however more like of a documentation and UX problem. Neovim should warn and ask before deleting old undo files, or at least back them up, but it's not neovim's fault if people don't use reliable backup and versioning systems. Relying on persistent undo for this is kind of a self inflicted wound.
Use the proper tools for the job
sdorf 2 minutes ago [-]
I've always assumed that undo history is ephemeral in any application I use, other than maybe an application where history is first-class in a timeline like Fusion360. I'm surprised to hear that people rely on it being persistent.
Seems so. As smart as keeping tabs open in browser instead of using bookmarks, but "workflow".
gchamonlive 7 minutes ago [-]
Btw zen browser's folders are many streets ahead of Firefox's traditional bookmarking.
carterschonwald 12 minutes ago [-]
duty of care is kinda absent in too much of software engineering. its painfully missing in recent anthropic models because of the broken value framework they use for ethics. but broadly: i currently have the stance that text gen language models should prioritize users wellbeing rather than model orovider liability
spamizbad 1 hours ago [-]
"Vibe shift" is all the rage these days but one area where it's most apparent is modern software.
People of Raskin's vintage had a very humanist approach to computing. The mentality was very much an outgrowth of the cultural revolution of the 60s. Computer usage should be joyful rather than toiling. The computer should help you. It should make you feel good about what you create.
That stands in stark contrast today, where things are more hostile. Not just in terms of "Dark patterns", or writing off user needs for the sake of expediency... but even the way we talk about technology today. You need to use X, do Y or you're "not going to make it" / "escape the permanent underclass". It's bleak.
I recently restored a vintage Macintosh SE I picked up at VCF Midwest and despite its limitations that machine was an absolute JOY to use despite its limitations and nearly 40 years of age. This was a machine and software designed by Raskin's contemporaries and it shows.
creata 41 minutes ago [-]
> but even the way we talk about technology today. You need to use X, do Y or you're "not going to make it" / "escape the permanent underclass". It's bleak.
That's just how people market things these days, preying on desperation and fear of missing out. It's not how normal humans talk, I hope.
ryandrake 56 minutes ago [-]
Software’s purpose is clearly shifting from “what’s good for the user” to “what’s good for the developer.” Instead of enabling me, software now seeks to lock me in. Instead of making my life easier, software decisions are made based on what makes developers’ jobs easier. Instead of being careful with my data, software now comes with giant legal terms that allow developers to be utterly careless with it. Software is now designed primarily to funnel money to the developer, not to bring joy to the user.
And look at this article’s HN discussion. Many people indignantly defending it. “It’s open source. If you don’t like it deleting your data, don’t use it!”
recursivedoubts 1 hours ago [-]
They are open source developers, giving away free software as a gift. There is no duty here.
We can speak, respectfully, of how important backwards compatibility is to us, and ask nicely for them to give more of their time to support it when their free sodftware isn't backwards compatible. Perhaps we can even offer to help implement it.
But they have no duty to do so or to "care" for their users. (They have already demonstrated they care for their users, btw, by giving them free software.)
EDIT: I missed an important part of the story, which is that they mutated existing files in a non-backwards compatible manner. That should have been avoided, I understand where the (secondary) author is coming from now.
rlue 1 hours ago [-]
The argument is that developers have a duty not to arbitrarily delete data on your system that you may have relied on that was produced by another program just because they’d like to replace it with something in their own format.
I don’t care if you’re volunteering your time; if you build something whose implied purpose and success depends on other people using it, you emphatically have a duty to those people not to silently destroy stuff that was there before your software was.
pdonis 1 hours ago [-]
It's worth pointing out that vim is not "another program" as far as Neovim is concerned. It's an earlier version of the same program. Neovim is a fork of vim, not a totally different editor that happens to share part of a name.
goodmythical 1 hours ago [-]
Forking creates new programs.
If I fork chromium, I do not get to claim that I am a chromium maintainer.
Vim and Neovim are two seperate programs.
SigmundA 53 minutes ago [-]
So maybe it should have two different undo files so both can be run side by side?
jeremyjh 48 minutes ago [-]
Exactly and I think it does this by default now, but I have not checked.
1 hours ago [-]
jeremyjh 49 minutes ago [-]
It absolutely is another program, I can tell this because it has a different name. To run it I type "nvim" instead of "vim". I use different config files to control its behavior. I install a different package on my system when I want to use it on a new computer.
pdonis 1 hours ago [-]
> giving away free software as a gift
Even a gift comes with an implicit promise that it will do no harm. Deleting important data of yours without warning is harm.
timschmidt 1 hours ago [-]
This gift comes with the following clauses listed plainly in the license file:
7. Disclaimer of Warranty. Unless required by applicable law or
agreed to in writing, Licensor provides the Work (and each
Contributor provides its Contributions) on an "AS IS" BASIS,
WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or
implied, including, without limitation, any warranties or conditions
of TITLE, NON-INFRINGEMENT, MERCHANTABILITY, or FITNESS FOR A
PARTICULAR PURPOSE. You are solely responsible for determining the
appropriateness of using or redistributing the Work and assume any
risks associated with Your exercise of permissions under this License.
8. Limitation of Liability. In no event and under no legal theory,
whether in tort (including negligence), contract, or otherwise,
unless required by applicable law (such as deliberate and grossly
negligent acts) or agreed to in writing, shall any Contributor be
liable to You for damages, including any direct, indirect, special,
incidental, or consequential damages of any character arising as a
result of this License or out of the use or inability to use the
Work (including but not limited to damages for loss of goodwill,
work stoppage, computer failure or malfunction, or any and all
other commercial damages or losses), even if such Contributor
has been advised of the possibility of such damages.
InsideOutSanta 54 minutes ago [-]
It's genuinely mind-blowing to me that software can do something obviously bad, someone can point it out, and then someone will link to the license file to say they have the right to do it.
That's such an obvious category mistake that I'm not sure how to respond. It almost feels like a bad-faith interpretation of Wichary's original point.
timschmidt 40 minutes ago [-]
Equally mindblowing that folks feel someone hacking on open source software has an obligation to do anything the way they feel it needs to be done when the whole point is that anyone gets to do more or less what they want with the code.
You can't have both.
retsibsi 11 minutes ago [-]
They get to do more or less what they want with the software, and others get to say more or less what they want about that. What's wrong with deciding they've crossed a line, being bothered by that, and warning others? Nobody's trying to get the law involved, or maliciously retaliate against them, or anything like that.
InsideOutSanta 2 minutes ago [-]
I published my comment for free, and yet you are criticizing it.
nikanj 1 minutes ago [-]
"My software ran rm -rf / but it's GPL so sucks to be you"
Chris2048 2 minutes ago [-]
> has an obligation to do anything the way they feel it needs to be done
> anyone gets to do more or less what they want with the code
so if the software had explicitly installed a root kit, you'd say the same?
If you give out free soup, you get to poison it too?
jstanley 1 hours ago [-]
I don't think anyone is looking for legal remedies, this is not the right layer.
timschmidt 59 minutes ago [-]
Is some part of:
"Licensor provides the Work (and each Contributor provides its Contributions) on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied, including, without limitation, any warranties or conditions of TITLE, NON-INFRINGEMENT, MERCHANTABILITY, or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE."
Unclear? The fact that it's part of a license does not make it a legal-system-only warning.
The software might eat your dog, and feed your homework. Run it at your own risk, and be prepared to submit patches or fork it to make it behave the way one prefers.
jeremyjh 45 minutes ago [-]
Is the fact that we are not discussing legal remedies in this thread unclear?
_vertigo 42 minutes ago [-]
This is one of the most exhausting (and frankly, exhausted) recurring arguments that comes up over and over again on HN.
Some bit of open source software does something bad or unwanted which causes people point out that it shouldn't do that bad thing. In this case, not even "the authors of this software should be held liable for the software doing the bad thing", just, "Hey, the right thing to do would be to update the software to not do the bad thing."
Why does this always lead a zillion people to come out of the woodwork to point at licenses and warnings or whatever? Like, yes, there's a warning. Your software having a warning doesn't mean people can't criticize you and your software for doing bad thing. Your software license does not give you immunity from criticism or from people saying you should change your software.
No, you don't have to change the software. Yes, other people are within their rights to fork the software themselves. But they can also point out that they told you that your software was doing the bad thing and you didn't fix it or change it, and that as a result they don't like you or your software or both — whatever. Nothing at all wrong with that.
jeltz 25 minutes ago [-]
Such a disclaimer does not even remove all legal liability, it just reduces it.
mikestew 54 minutes ago [-]
The software might eat your dog, and feed your homework
Sure, and when it does we can say “this piece of shit ate my dog, and the authors of the software have no concept of a duty of care to their users”. And no amount of “well, axually…” is going to make any difference. I have a hard believing someone is copy-pasting a license file in good faith in response.
timschmidt 47 minutes ago [-]
Most open source software is written by individuals who aren't paid for the effort, and are solving their own problems. Presuming that they feel an obligation to the folks who download and use their work for free seems... bold.
If my neighbor mows my lawn for free, I'm not going to complain about his workmanship. If I want the job done a particular way, the solution is to do it myself, or pay someone to do it the way I like.
retsibsi 32 seconds ago [-]
> If my neighbor mows my lawn for free, I'm not going to complain about his workmanship. If I want the job done a particular way, the solution is to do it myself, or pay someone to do it the way I like.
I think this is a decent analogy, but it works better the other way. If my neighbour offers to mow my lawn, I accept, and then he destroys the flower bed adjacent to the lawn, I will be upset, and I will have every right to complain about what he did. If he reacts by blithely dismissing my concern, then I certainly have the right (and arguably the obligation) to warn others that they should think twice about accepting his offers of gardening assistance.
Some expectations reasonably go without saying; "don't destroy my flower bed when mowing my lawn" is one, and IMO "don't destroy my data without a clear warning and a chance to back out" is another, though of course we might disagree about exactly where this does and doesn't apply.
leoc 5 minutes ago [-]
Suppose that you build a childrens' slide in your front garden. You put up a big sign saying "Consider using my slide! https://neovim.io/ Here are several wonderful things about it. It's free for everyone!" in your yard. Underneath in smaller letters you add "[No liability]". You also put up noticeboard ads for your free kids' slide in neighbourhood shopping malls https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/neovimhttps://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Neovim . Unfortunately, when you built the slide, you left sharp metal edges and corners sticking far up on the inside, reaching into the path of the user. No reasonably competent and diligent metalworker or slide-maker would have failed to notice these major flaws or failed to understand the serious danger they represented. Several neighbourhood children use the slide and receive serious gashes to the legs, arms or face, and have to go to the hospital. Even assuming that your no-liability small print somehow had you free and clear legally, do you believe that your behaviour would have been ethically and morally above criticism? Do you think that "should have read the small print!" or "can't I build what I like in my own front yard?" would have you covered? Do you think that your family and friends would agree?
rdiddly 7 minutes ago [-]
If my neighbor mows my lawn for free, and in the process mows my flower garden down, things change a bit though don't they. That is a closer analogy. In that case I am going to complain, and maybe also tell everybody he's careless and not to let him near their lawns.
tikhonj 44 minutes ago [-]
If my neighbor mows my lawn and ruins my whole garden, I'd definitely complain. (And if I were in the neighbor's shoes, I'd feel awful about it and try to fix things.)
bunderbunder 42 minutes ago [-]
There's a long literary tradition of representing contracts as a tool of villainy. Signing them is generally treated as a Faustian bargain.
This is a great example of why. Most humans have a sense, deep down, that contracts often exist to bridge the gulf between the ethically defensible and the legally defensible.
It's hard to imagine that any sane person who is just looking to use a popular editor would read some broad limitation of liability language like the above, and interpret it to mean, "By the way, we intend to quietly delete certain files created by a competing fork of this project whenever we find them."
It's true that contracts with liability limitation clauses like this are an absolute necessity in this day and age. But there's also a non-legal principle of mutual respect that is absolutely necessary to a healthy open source community.
timschmidt 35 minutes ago [-]
> It's hard to imagine that any sane person who is just looking to use a popular editor would read some broad limitation of liability language like the above, and interpret it to mean, "By the way, we intend to quietly delete certain files created by a competing fork of this project whenever we find them."
Forks of projects trodding all over each others files is one of the more common problems that has happened, historically. Prior to the major efforts around freedesktop.org around configuration standardization, it was quite common. It'd be one of the first things I looked for when switching to a fork.
bunderbunder 14 minutes ago [-]
I’m not saying it doesn’t happen. I’m saying it shouldn’t be defended as good. It’s a defect. And in this particular incarnation it’s a defect that directly clashes with fundamental Free Software principles such as personal digital sovereignty.
I also suspect that few people actually believe it’s ok and these legalistic defenses are more about circling the wagons. How many people would defend Microsoft if a new Office version automatically and quietly stripped edit history from documents that were originally created by other versions? Would we be hunting for limited liability clauses in their EULA to defend the design decision?
jeremyjh 47 minutes ago [-]
I am never going to use any software you have written.
zbentley 1 hours ago [-]
“Here, take this car, it’s free!”
“Ow, the gas pedal is actually a bear trap.”
“Why are you complaining? It’s free!”
k6hkUZtLUM 45 minutes ago [-]
This is a very apt analogy. If you give someone a car (or sell it cheap) and you know there is a problem with the car, then it is your duty to tell them. "Hey, I've been having trouble with the breaks they need to be pumped. Be careful about that."
dima55 1 hours ago [-]
Then you don't take the car. Why is this confusing?
leoc 57 minutes ago [-]
That's not how liability works, not either morally or (IANAL) legally.
jstanley 1 hours ago [-]
Because you didn't find out it was a bear trap until after you stepped on it?
InsideOutSanta 58 minutes ago [-]
Ah, yes. The old story of the one-footed man who didn't take the car.
Espressosaurus 53 minutes ago [-]
Well I would feel slightly irate if I had to find out about the bear trap before I decide I don’t want the car.
1 hours ago [-]
mcphage 54 minutes ago [-]
That’s fine, you can leave the car, but you’ve already lost your foot. Why do you find this confusing?
WesolyKubeczek 1 hours ago [-]
You discover it’s a bear trap not before you try to pull out from the parking lot.
layer8 1 hours ago [-]
A duty, like a responsibility, can be something you feel or choose for yourself. The fact that the maintainers of some software don’t feel it is a perfectly good argument for not using that software. There is no necessary connection to compensation or transactional thinking.
bsoqk 1 hours ago [-]
If I give away food I have a duty not to poison you. It doesn’t matter you didn’t pay for it.
thih9 1 hours ago [-]
Others are eating it and are fine, chances are you’re allergic. Fortunately all ingredients are listed, you can check - or even modify the recipe yourself.
Grombobulous 1 hours ago [-]
Software isn’t food.
pdonis 1 hours ago [-]
So software that deletes important data of yours without any warning is ok because at least it isn't poisoning you?
1 hours ago [-]
brookst 1 hours ago [-]
If you have to twist things so far that intent doesn’t matter, something’s wrong.
jeremyjh 42 minutes ago [-]
According to TFA, it was completely intentional that they deleted someone’s data that had been created with a different program. Otherwise they would have acknowledged it was a bug. I do not know if this is true, only that it is what TFA claims.
Grombobulous 26 minutes ago [-]
It’s not great that Neovim destroyed/replaced files that aren’t clearly under its purview. They should have probably also made the consideration that a lot of Neovim users are going to be migrating from Vim.
Maybe if they’re making their own persistent undo standard, use different file naming conventions.
That said, as a fork of Vim, maybe the Neovim authors are at least partially reasonable in assuming that you’re not running multiple forks of Vim that could then potentially conflict with each other. It just sucks that they never really thought of a migration path for this particular feature.
1 hours ago [-]
bigstrat2003 1 hours ago [-]
Yes, everyone is aware of that. The parent poster was bringing up the example of food to demonstrate that our society does not agree that giving something away for free doesn't mean you have no obligation as to potential adverse effects of the thing.
Ekaros 29 minutes ago [-]
That is why software should have very large liability for anything software they release do? Say your software due to bug destroys some document. Surely you should pay damages caused by such bug even if quite high?
Grombobulous 1 hours ago [-]
Analogies like this don’t work when comparing against heavily regulated industry.
Neovim being free software is a lot different than United Airlines giving me a free flight or my doctor giving me a free consultation.
It’s very true that you can go to civil court and make a claim that a business or individual harmed you. If you do that with Neovim the judge is going to pretty quickly read bullet point #7 of the Apache 2.0 license, you’re going to struggle to prove any kind of mal-intent, you’re going to tell the judge that you paid $0 for the software, and you’ll be pretty quickly sent along your way with no damages awarded.
TheOtherHobbes 45 minutes ago [-]
Only in the sense there's no explicit legal responsibility.
Do you really believe developers have exactly zero moral responsibility to their users? None at all?
Really?
Would you still believe that if you found the developers of ssh deliberately included a backdoor for hackers, or neovim was uploading everyone's code to the NSA?
Grombobulous 34 minutes ago [-]
I never said developers have no responsibility. Let’s not escalate. Now we are talking about actively malicious software versus a bug or design flaw.
This issue with Neovim sounds like less than ideal design, or a bug, or both, not some kind of intentional affront to users.
bsoqk 1 hours ago [-]
You must feel clever completely missing the point on purpose like that.
InsideOutSanta 50 minutes ago [-]
"Your analogy is false because the two things you are comparing are not literally the same, dear sir!" is such a classic Internet discussion trope that it must have a name. If it doesn't, can I please name it? Maybe Perfect Analogy Fallacy?
Grombobulous 41 minutes ago [-]
But they couldn’t be further from different. You have to have a health inspector visit your kitchen just to sell food at all. You need affirmative permission from the government to sell food.
Citizen_Lame 1 hours ago [-]
This guy you are arguing with is classic troll, he does it on every topic. Just ignore and don't reply.
jeltz 35 minutes ago [-]
Yeah, people like him is what the doenvote button is intended for.
57 minutes ago [-]
Grombobulous 1 hours ago [-]
Food is one of the more heavily regulated industries out there. Most other general business types are less regulated than food.
ToucanLoucan 1 hours ago [-]
It's not poison, it's a broken feature. And you have the source code. Fix it if you like.
pdonis 1 hours ago [-]
Sure, and then have it break again the next time upstream pushes a change. Or have something else break because upstream doesn't care about breaking things that I'm relying on.
The only way to "fix" this from a source code perspective would be to fork Neovim.
rwmj 1 hours ago [-]
This is absolutely true. On the other hand, if there's Vim, Neovim, emacs, MS Word, Google Docs etc and some treat me with respect and others do not, that might affect my choice of which software to use.
jeremyjh 50 minutes ago [-]
They wrote this software with the explicit intention of offering it to other people to use. Their program deleted data created with a different program, on someone else’s computer. If they have no sense of duty that would preclude doing that, no one should use their software.
Snarwin 1 hours ago [-]
Sure. And likewise, users who care about backwards compatibility have no duty to do anything for the Neovim developers--they can simply use a different editor that suits their preferences.
JacobKfromIRC 1 hours ago [-]
Is there a good way to avoid programs like this in general?
boredumb 46 minutes ago [-]
You buy software that includes a commercial license that guarantees data retention
jeltz 34 minutes ago [-]
So that answer us no because such software does virtually not exist.
5 minutes ago [-]
gozzoo 1 hours ago [-]
> They are open source developers, giving away free software as a gift. There is no duty here.
But actually there is! They didn't start from scratch. They took another very successfull and beloved project with the promise "to make it better". There is some promise here and the duty not to make it worse.
margalabargala 1 hours ago [-]
"Better" is subjective. They made it better...for themselves. Then gave it away so people who share their opinion, had the opportunity to choose to use it.
owebmaster 1 hours ago [-]
It would be really surprising if they could make it better for literally every user. The perpetual undo is just better handled by git.
brookst 1 hours ago [-]
And this obligation lasts… for the rest of their lives?
TheOtherHobbes 53 minutes ago [-]
"Behold my glorious generosity, which eclipses your petty meaningless little data!"
This is the extreme version of "I enjoy coding but I hate users."
It may be legally valid in absolute technical terms, but I'm going to take a lot of persuading that it's a healthy attitude.
bestouff 1 hours ago [-]
Sure. And nobody has a duty to use it.
This user states that (s)he doesn't want to use an editor that doesn't care for its users. I don't blame anyone here.
ryandrake 51 minutes ago [-]
HN commenters constantly mistake “what I should do” with “what I am obligated to do.” Nobody is saying open source developers are legally mandated to be careful with user data. We are saying they should. There’s no need to haul out the license and put our lawyer hats on here. One can be within one’s legal rights and still be wrong.
novia 1 hours ago [-]
If people can be upset when llms delete a file, we can be upset when an open-source project deletes a file.
xboxnolifes 1 hours ago [-]
Ill remember this when I distribute malware.
sdcfgy 55 minutes ago [-]
To be fair some malware has a better support and care experience than some open source software. The malware actively encourages you to contact them to pay the ransom. The open source software, no such luck.
xbar 1 hours ago [-]
Oh my. This set of principles is appropriate for malware.
manvillej 1 hours ago [-]
If you don’t like how it works, go build your own.
jeltz 31 minutes ago [-]
I already build software where I hold myself to a higher standard than malware, so not sure I get your point. Why not strive for a better world with good software?
manvillej 14 minutes ago [-]
Your suggestion that it is malware is misleading. Malware is “any software intentionally designed to harm, disrupt, or steal data from computers”. I sincerely doubt that was the author’s intention.
Everyone in open source is trying to write good software and the definition of good is subjective depending on overall design, features, ease of use, quality, and performance.
If an open source project is missing a feature, go build it. If the project maintainers don’t want it, fork the project. Be the change you want to see in the world. That’s the beauty of open source.
diego_moita 51 minutes ago [-]
> giving away free software as a gift. There is no duty here.
By that logic, if Facebook gives away their services for free then they don't have the duty to protect their user's privacy and mental health?
1 hours ago [-]
mindslight 1 hours ago [-]
By your reasoning, a doctor who volunteers to provide free care to people has no duty of care to those patients. This is patently absurd - ethics and norms are a large part of what constitutes a professional.
And for what it's worth, I have flagged your comment for the inevitable pointless bickering it has precipitated. While applying reductionist frameworks and seeing where they lead is a necessary part of an individual's path to understanding, please avoid pushing ignorant assertions ("there is no duty here") as if they might constitute well reasoned truths.
sdcfgy 1 hours ago [-]
There is not a duty but there is an image and quality issue. Something many open source projects suffer from and should not.
And even mentioning that results in "fork it if you're not happy" which immediately turns everyone off who's had to maintain a fork to fix a minor issue in something before. And anyone who can't fork it is being told to go to hell.
Everyone needs to quite frankly get off their high horse, crank the ego down and listen to users. Because you're damaging open source with the attitude.
30 years ago, things were better. They got a lot worse, particularly since github appeared.
yipinwong 1 hours ago [-]
You spewing bs like the left-pad dev who removed it from NPM a decade ago crashing everything.
Yes, OSS can start with just a passion without a duty, but as the scale grows you have a duty to make sure it does not have adverse effect.
If you don't like the duty, just make it die by building it crappy like VIM does.
linsomniac 1 hours ago [-]
>I deleted something from this file, maybe last week
Don't forget time travel: `:earlier 7d`
ProofHouse 12 minutes ago [-]
VIM should be in the title here as well
neuodev 1 hours ago [-]
Awkwardly speaking, Microsoft Word is a great example of a program that appreciates backward compatibility.
fooblaster 1 hours ago [-]
How does one use persistent undo in vim?
fooblaster 1 hours ago [-]
Talk about poor duty of care to users... been using him for 20 years and I have to enable it in my vimrc to take effect. So stupid. Why would I want this to be off?
Such amazing design...
" Enable persistent undo
set undofile
layer8 1 hours ago [-]
It’s somewhat important for privacy reasons that the feature is opt-in. I don’t know if that’s the reason historically, but I wouldn’t want a text editor to persistently store a copy of everything I type without my consent. It’s almost like a keylogger.
Making privacy-sensitive features opt-in is a form of duty of care as well, to avert harm from the user.
phoghed 25 minutes ago [-]
Edit history in JetBrains being on by default saved my bacon a few times over the years.
oblio 1 hours ago [-]
Emacs and Vim are basically like that.
They have very vocal and entrenched users that basically no defaults can be changed lest the single Amiga user will start a huge uproar.
And since they don't really have a BDFL or commercial pressure, they can be super detached even from standards or expectations that appeared 40 years ago.
Neovim was basically a reaction to that, for Vim, where they updated defaults to stuff basically every Unix editor since 2005 has.
bethekidyouwant 39 minutes ago [-]
That’s why I stopped getting all those swap file messages every time I opened vim…
mindslight 1 hours ago [-]
Continuing the analogy - rather than a relationship that might even possibly include a duty of care, the relationship of the modern surveillance industry (Faceboot, Google, etc) to its "users" is that of arms manufacturers to military targets.
49 minutes ago [-]
fatbird 1 hours ago [-]
Unsaid in the blog post is that disabling persistant undo is one of the most common config changes for vim users who bother to set things up the way they like. Persistent undo is what causes your filesystem to be littered with tilde files, which have the same name but prefixed with a tilde. Every file you touch with vim gets a tilde version. Your ls output becomes polluted with noise.
neoyagami 43 minutes ago [-]
[dead]
philipallstar 39 minutes ago [-]
> Apparently now they’re platforming white supremacists. I am completely unsurprised. Different facets of the same underlying attitude.
This was the end of the original Mastodon. Which is why I just can't with Mastodon or Bluesky. Casually tossing around ridiculous claims to back up an opinion on persistent undo.
sebzim4500 35 minutes ago [-]
Are you responding to the wrong post? This isn't anywhere in TFA
creata 29 minutes ago [-]
It's in the first link in the post.
31 minutes ago [-]
Anduia 1 hours ago [-]
TLDR: Neovim did a breaking change to persistent undo
jeremyjh 28 minutes ago [-]
That is not the story here. The story is Neovim deleted data created by another program, on someone else's computer.
I don't know if this story is true, but you can't defend it when taken at face value.
SigmundA 54 minutes ago [-]
I think this might not be clear on the issue, it broke vim's undo file, as in it deleted it and replaced it with Neovims version.
Just by trying Neovim you can lose your vim undo file.
sscaryterry 29 minutes ago [-]
This is the crux of the matter. I wish a few of the "its OSS" commentators here would read this.
mcphage 49 minutes ago [-]
…and even trying Neovim out on a file permanently deletes your undo history for that file, even if you switch back to vim.
bt_hn_19418 2 hours ago [-]
[dead]
hasperdi 1 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
kccqzy 1 hours ago [-]
Right. The point of the article is for the author to tell us neovim doesn’t care about their users and the author recommends us to use something else.
Grombobulous 1 hours ago [-]
Put another way, why did the author “test in production” on their important work when evaluating a new piece of software they were unfamiliar with?
Vim is a very popular piece of software to the point where there are dozens or perhaps hundreds of forks made by all kinds of people. Many if not most of these forks are probably not very good.
planckscnst 1 hours ago [-]
And you can also rant about it so other people are not harmed in the same way without warning
sdcfgy 1 hours ago [-]
I hate this attitude. It is what makes the free software community look like utter dicks to the user community, particularly those who can't really fork or contribute to it. It's a serious image issue.
Hell I can and have contributed and have been told to fuck off and fork it or entirely ignored.
xenophonf 1 hours ago [-]
It's hardly a rant. Not once did either author question the birthright of the Neovim developers in Russian.
I think more software engineers should worry about this stuff. If I had to teach a bunch of juniors in a computer science or software engineering degree program, I'd make them read this as a case study alongside good ol' Therac-25. The software we create is _useful_. How it affects other people _matters_. We ought to care about that no matter what the legal disclaimers say.
hyperlinerapp 1 hours ago [-]
It’s Open source.
Some people just want to keep looking at the gift horse in the mouth.
jeltz 27 minutes ago [-]
As an open source developer I hate this attitude. If you do not care about the users why are you even releasing the software?
Ekaros 8 minutes ago [-]
Well in these ages of vibecoding. Maybe you are doing it for yourself. Or because you can? Actually caring of users hasn't been very high for most software for long time...
phoghed 24 minutes ago [-]
Because they care about a different subset of the users? You can’t make everybody happy.
hyperlinerapp 18 minutes ago [-]
It’s a free country.
Ekaros 36 minutes ago [-]
Of course they do not. Read the licenses. They explicitly tell you that there is no warranty or fitness of purpose. It explicitly tells you that it is not fit for purpose. Expecting it to be is your own duty.
jurf 1 hours ago [-]
To be the devil’s advocate here, I think Vim needs less backwards compatibility, not more. In the sanctifying of “muscle memory” it completely stopped innovation, to the point of slowly drifting to obscurity.
Of the over a hundred students I taught when I helped out in uni, basically no one wanted to learn it, despite my enthusiasm.
And I sympathise. As I get older, I slowly grow more and more distaste for software that does not respect my time enough to give me properly-crafted defaults. Vim, in the age of modern editors, cannot compete. Not without 20 plugins with conflicting shortcuts and its self-imposed cliff of a learning curve.
And I’m saying this from a place of love; I’ve been using Vim (at least as a VSCode extension) every day for the last 10 years. But it never really grew up to the promise that the “Vim Creep” essay [1] gave me.
Vim is always going to be obscure because it's not obvious from looking at it how you use it. Muscle memory is the entire point. You don't need to change any keybinds, and I don't. I did feel discouraged to learn it at first because the people introducing it to me were doing pointlessly fancy things in it, some combination of custom keybinds and scripts to mass edit files.
As for default plugins, it'd be neat if they curated a set of optional ones, but nothing should be preinstalled.
0xbadcafebee 8 minutes ago [-]
[delayed]
Rendered at 16:47:17 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Vercel.
1. The change would break undo history, for both Neovim and Vim.
2. This means Neovim would delete data created by a different program, on another user's computer.
3. This was known before the feature was released.
4. They did it anyway.
I don't think there can really be any post-hoc justification of this.
https://github.com/neovim/neovim/pull/13973#issuecomment-789...
Unlike Dr. Chisnall, I started my editor journey on Neovim, so it wasn't a transition that bit me. However, if the format of the persistent undo file is unstable, and Neovim just deletes it when it doesn't recognize the previous format, then it seems conceivable (to me) that an upgrade after changing the format would delete the file too.
Ouch. This is making me think about getting off of Neovim. Yes, FOSS comes as-is, but if there's an alternative...
I could see ignoring the old undo data or warning before discarding it but just silently wiping it is so user hostile it’s hard to comprehend.
It doesn't matter whether or not you can think of a reason you would want to enable it, but it should be pretty trivial to do so. Once you've enabled it, it should work.
I can give some as well. IDE crashes. Computer reboots at an undesired time. Even if my work is saved, I am not “finished”. I would like my undo history to extend before file / open time.
Moreover, the vim history tracking is amazingly advanced. It's almost like a mini version control system. I highly recommend getting to know it.
I often use vim or nvim on disposable machines, so persistent undo is something very low on my list of things I want.
That fell apart when people wanted vim to do some more modern IDE kind of things like all the “… on save” stuff (build on save, test, lint, etc). I think LSP support is native in neovim as well.
I believe vim merged asynchronous plugin support a while back though, so I’m not sure how different they really are anymore.
Just run make from another terminal...
The way I personally remember it being positioned was “Vim, but with breaking changes.”
The original author of this post (on Mastodon) appears to have a bone to pick with Neovim since it's "platforming white supremacists"? I couldn't figure out what this meant. Some sort of internet drama I guess.
https://github.com/neovim/neovim.github.io/issues/501
It took me only 10 seconds to write.
It's dishonest to downplay what his "political views" entail. He compared the removal of minorities to pest extermination.
> When wolves get out of control, you shoot them. When gypsies take over public spaces, you deport them.
If illegal migrants are ruining your city, you should enforce the law. Its not rocket science
I got Streisanded into reading some of his quotes and they dont seem that bad.
But it is a nice feature.
I do that by using version control. I have it hooked to my editor so that "save" is "check in". Now I have persistent, versioned, copies of all my states independent of whatever tools I happen to be using.
That's the wrong way to look at it. NeoVIM has a different concept of care for their users. They're optimizing for another kind of care, more in line with modern expectations, which VIM did not care about (hence the fork).
It's not better or worse, just different.
This same article could've been written about how VIM has no native LSP integration or autocomplete and they don't have duty or care for their users.
* https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49867678
* https://bastian.rieck.me/blog/2015/persistent_undo_vim/
Relax for a second. Get some perspective.
```markdown
abhorrent
/əbˈhɒr(ə)nt/
Abhorrent is an adjective that means morally very bad, hateful, or causing strong disgust and loathing.
```
I realise that this causes strong disgust and loathing in you, but can you please expand upon how it's morally very bad to prioritise speed and ease of use over undelete capability in Neovim? Are you unable to make backups or use Git?
People are making it sound like this is a huge company with a product and not a grouping of curious people with a couple hours of free time on a Sunday.
Most likely they never thought about it, then it broke, then it was not impactful enough to fix on their free time compared to other stuff.
If it's really just a toy with no expectation of not unexpectedly destroying user data then they ought to make that more clear.
https://github.com/neovim/neovim/pull/13973#issuecomment-789...
This story is about software being a slow, deliberate process where a lack of gatekeeping can lead to data loss. This is the type of problem which is getting worse.
(Or rather, you can, but you will likely be disappointed.)
This seems however more like of a documentation and UX problem. Neovim should warn and ask before deleting old undo files, or at least back them up, but it's not neovim's fault if people don't use reliable backup and versioning systems. Relying on persistent undo for this is kind of a self inflicted wound.
Use the proper tools for the job
Seems so. As smart as keeping tabs open in browser instead of using bookmarks, but "workflow".
People of Raskin's vintage had a very humanist approach to computing. The mentality was very much an outgrowth of the cultural revolution of the 60s. Computer usage should be joyful rather than toiling. The computer should help you. It should make you feel good about what you create.
That stands in stark contrast today, where things are more hostile. Not just in terms of "Dark patterns", or writing off user needs for the sake of expediency... but even the way we talk about technology today. You need to use X, do Y or you're "not going to make it" / "escape the permanent underclass". It's bleak.
I recently restored a vintage Macintosh SE I picked up at VCF Midwest and despite its limitations that machine was an absolute JOY to use despite its limitations and nearly 40 years of age. This was a machine and software designed by Raskin's contemporaries and it shows.
That's just how people market things these days, preying on desperation and fear of missing out. It's not how normal humans talk, I hope.
And look at this article’s HN discussion. Many people indignantly defending it. “It’s open source. If you don’t like it deleting your data, don’t use it!”
We can speak, respectfully, of how important backwards compatibility is to us, and ask nicely for them to give more of their time to support it when their free sodftware isn't backwards compatible. Perhaps we can even offer to help implement it.
But they have no duty to do so or to "care" for their users. (They have already demonstrated they care for their users, btw, by giving them free software.)
EDIT: I missed an important part of the story, which is that they mutated existing files in a non-backwards compatible manner. That should have been avoided, I understand where the (secondary) author is coming from now.
I don’t care if you’re volunteering your time; if you build something whose implied purpose and success depends on other people using it, you emphatically have a duty to those people not to silently destroy stuff that was there before your software was.
If I fork chromium, I do not get to claim that I am a chromium maintainer.
Vim and Neovim are two seperate programs.
Even a gift comes with an implicit promise that it will do no harm. Deleting important data of yours without warning is harm.
That's such an obvious category mistake that I'm not sure how to respond. It almost feels like a bad-faith interpretation of Wichary's original point.
You can't have both.
> anyone gets to do more or less what they want with the code
so if the software had explicitly installed a root kit, you'd say the same?
If you give out free soup, you get to poison it too?
"Licensor provides the Work (and each Contributor provides its Contributions) on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied, including, without limitation, any warranties or conditions of TITLE, NON-INFRINGEMENT, MERCHANTABILITY, or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE."
Unclear? The fact that it's part of a license does not make it a legal-system-only warning.
The software might eat your dog, and feed your homework. Run it at your own risk, and be prepared to submit patches or fork it to make it behave the way one prefers.
Some bit of open source software does something bad or unwanted which causes people point out that it shouldn't do that bad thing. In this case, not even "the authors of this software should be held liable for the software doing the bad thing", just, "Hey, the right thing to do would be to update the software to not do the bad thing."
Why does this always lead a zillion people to come out of the woodwork to point at licenses and warnings or whatever? Like, yes, there's a warning. Your software having a warning doesn't mean people can't criticize you and your software for doing bad thing. Your software license does not give you immunity from criticism or from people saying you should change your software.
No, you don't have to change the software. Yes, other people are within their rights to fork the software themselves. But they can also point out that they told you that your software was doing the bad thing and you didn't fix it or change it, and that as a result they don't like you or your software or both — whatever. Nothing at all wrong with that.
Sure, and when it does we can say “this piece of shit ate my dog, and the authors of the software have no concept of a duty of care to their users”. And no amount of “well, axually…” is going to make any difference. I have a hard believing someone is copy-pasting a license file in good faith in response.
If my neighbor mows my lawn for free, I'm not going to complain about his workmanship. If I want the job done a particular way, the solution is to do it myself, or pay someone to do it the way I like.
I think this is a decent analogy, but it works better the other way. If my neighbour offers to mow my lawn, I accept, and then he destroys the flower bed adjacent to the lawn, I will be upset, and I will have every right to complain about what he did. If he reacts by blithely dismissing my concern, then I certainly have the right (and arguably the obligation) to warn others that they should think twice about accepting his offers of gardening assistance.
Some expectations reasonably go without saying; "don't destroy my flower bed when mowing my lawn" is one, and IMO "don't destroy my data without a clear warning and a chance to back out" is another, though of course we might disagree about exactly where this does and doesn't apply.
This is a great example of why. Most humans have a sense, deep down, that contracts often exist to bridge the gulf between the ethically defensible and the legally defensible.
It's hard to imagine that any sane person who is just looking to use a popular editor would read some broad limitation of liability language like the above, and interpret it to mean, "By the way, we intend to quietly delete certain files created by a competing fork of this project whenever we find them."
It's true that contracts with liability limitation clauses like this are an absolute necessity in this day and age. But there's also a non-legal principle of mutual respect that is absolutely necessary to a healthy open source community.
Forks of projects trodding all over each others files is one of the more common problems that has happened, historically. Prior to the major efforts around freedesktop.org around configuration standardization, it was quite common. It'd be one of the first things I looked for when switching to a fork.
I also suspect that few people actually believe it’s ok and these legalistic defenses are more about circling the wagons. How many people would defend Microsoft if a new Office version automatically and quietly stripped edit history from documents that were originally created by other versions? Would we be hunting for limited liability clauses in their EULA to defend the design decision?
“Ow, the gas pedal is actually a bear trap.”
“Why are you complaining? It’s free!”
Maybe if they’re making their own persistent undo standard, use different file naming conventions.
That said, as a fork of Vim, maybe the Neovim authors are at least partially reasonable in assuming that you’re not running multiple forks of Vim that could then potentially conflict with each other. It just sucks that they never really thought of a migration path for this particular feature.
Neovim being free software is a lot different than United Airlines giving me a free flight or my doctor giving me a free consultation.
It’s very true that you can go to civil court and make a claim that a business or individual harmed you. If you do that with Neovim the judge is going to pretty quickly read bullet point #7 of the Apache 2.0 license, you’re going to struggle to prove any kind of mal-intent, you’re going to tell the judge that you paid $0 for the software, and you’ll be pretty quickly sent along your way with no damages awarded.
Do you really believe developers have exactly zero moral responsibility to their users? None at all?
Really?
Would you still believe that if you found the developers of ssh deliberately included a backdoor for hackers, or neovim was uploading everyone's code to the NSA?
This issue with Neovim sounds like less than ideal design, or a bug, or both, not some kind of intentional affront to users.
The only way to "fix" this from a source code perspective would be to fork Neovim.
But actually there is! They didn't start from scratch. They took another very successfull and beloved project with the promise "to make it better". There is some promise here and the duty not to make it worse.
This is the extreme version of "I enjoy coding but I hate users."
It may be legally valid in absolute technical terms, but I'm going to take a lot of persuading that it's a healthy attitude.
Everyone in open source is trying to write good software and the definition of good is subjective depending on overall design, features, ease of use, quality, and performance.
If an open source project is missing a feature, go build it. If the project maintainers don’t want it, fork the project. Be the change you want to see in the world. That’s the beauty of open source.
By that logic, if Facebook gives away their services for free then they don't have the duty to protect their user's privacy and mental health?
And for what it's worth, I have flagged your comment for the inevitable pointless bickering it has precipitated. While applying reductionist frameworks and seeing where they lead is a necessary part of an individual's path to understanding, please avoid pushing ignorant assertions ("there is no duty here") as if they might constitute well reasoned truths.
And even mentioning that results in "fork it if you're not happy" which immediately turns everyone off who's had to maintain a fork to fix a minor issue in something before. And anyone who can't fork it is being told to go to hell.
Everyone needs to quite frankly get off their high horse, crank the ego down and listen to users. Because you're damaging open source with the attitude.
30 years ago, things were better. They got a lot worse, particularly since github appeared.
Yes, OSS can start with just a passion without a duty, but as the scale grows you have a duty to make sure it does not have adverse effect.
If you don't like the duty, just make it die by building it crappy like VIM does.
Don't forget time travel: `:earlier 7d`
Such amazing design...
" Enable persistent undo set undofile
Making privacy-sensitive features opt-in is a form of duty of care as well, to avert harm from the user.
They have very vocal and entrenched users that basically no defaults can be changed lest the single Amiga user will start a huge uproar.
And since they don't really have a BDFL or commercial pressure, they can be super detached even from standards or expectations that appeared 40 years ago.
Neovim was basically a reaction to that, for Vim, where they updated defaults to stuff basically every Unix editor since 2005 has.
This was the end of the original Mastodon. Which is why I just can't with Mastodon or Bluesky. Casually tossing around ridiculous claims to back up an opinion on persistent undo.
I don't know if this story is true, but you can't defend it when taken at face value.
Just by trying Neovim you can lose your vim undo file.
Vim is a very popular piece of software to the point where there are dozens or perhaps hundreds of forks made by all kinds of people. Many if not most of these forks are probably not very good.
Hell I can and have contributed and have been told to fuck off and fork it or entirely ignored.
I think more software engineers should worry about this stuff. If I had to teach a bunch of juniors in a computer science or software engineering degree program, I'd make them read this as a case study alongside good ol' Therac-25. The software we create is _useful_. How it affects other people _matters_. We ought to care about that no matter what the legal disclaimers say.
Some people just want to keep looking at the gift horse in the mouth.
Of the over a hundred students I taught when I helped out in uni, basically no one wanted to learn it, despite my enthusiasm.
And I sympathise. As I get older, I slowly grow more and more distaste for software that does not respect my time enough to give me properly-crafted defaults. Vim, in the age of modern editors, cannot compete. Not without 20 plugins with conflicting shortcuts and its self-imposed cliff of a learning curve.
And I’m saying this from a place of love; I’ve been using Vim (at least as a VSCode extension) every day for the last 10 years. But it never really grew up to the promise that the “Vim Creep” essay [1] gave me.
[1]: https://web.archive.org/web/20190227031109/https://www.norfo...
:wq
As for default plugins, it'd be neat if they curated a set of optional ones, but nothing should be preinstalled.