Few people could probably argue that they helped as many humans in dire situations like Bram did in his life. Vim was the first time I came across "charityware" as vim encourages users to donate to International Child Care Fund Holland on its splash screen, instead of begging for money for itself. I feel a bit of shame when I say that I've only donated to ICCF once over all these years.... As a remembrance of Bram an…
The number of people who spent that much time working on Open Source is very small, and the number of people who have spent that much time purely in their spare time is smaller still. In fact, I don't really know of anyone who even comes close to Bram.
The number of people who spent this much time volunteering for anything is very small.
Bram's effort on Vim was phenomenal and exceptional by any standard.
---
I only met Bram in person once, in 2014, when he talked about Zimbu[1]; at some point I must have given a bit of a skeptical look, and he promptly looked at me and asked "oh, you don't agree? Why not?" It was a nice talk with lots of "audience engagement" like this. We spent some time talking during the rest of the day and the next day; we discussed and joked about lots of things; I don't recall talking much about Vim: it just didn't come up. I found him a very friendly, warm, and likeable person.
Sven Guckes (who passed away last year) did organize a little "Ask Me Anything" type workshop with Bram, and I discovered Bram struggled remembering the ins-and-outs of some of the lesser used Vim features just as much as the rest of us :-)