openvi mit Homebrew, apk, Nix installieren

Projektlinks

• Homepage
• Upstream-Dokumentation
• Paketmanager-Seite

Befehle und Aliase

• oex
• ovi
• oview

Projektgeschichte

The OpenVi README describes the project as a fork of the vi/ex editor included with OpenBSD. That editor descends from nvi 1.79, the Berkeley ex/vi reimplementation associated with Keith Bostic, Sven Verdoolaege, and other CSRG contributors, and nvi itself traces back through Steve Kirkendall's Elvis editor.

OpenVi follows the common OpenBSD-portable pattern: take audited base-system code, add portability glue, and make it build on other Unix systems. Its README emphasizes readable code, secure C library idioms such as strlcpy, snprintf, mkstemp, and pledge where available, and a permissive BSD/ISC licensing mix.

Adoptionsgeschichte

OpenVi's adoption footprint is niche. It is packaged by Homebrew, Alpine, and Nix for users who want OpenBSD's vi behavior without installing OpenBSD, but it does not appear to be a general editor ecosystem on the scale of Vim, Neovim, or nvi2.

Its most natural audience is package minimalists, BSD users working on non-BSD hosts, and developers who want a small vi with OpenBSD ancestry rather than plugin systems, scripting runtimes, or GUI layers.

Wie es verwendet wird

The package installs ovi, oex, and oview so users can edit files, run ex commands, and inspect files with a vi-family tool. It is useful in lightweight shell environments, recovery setups, containers, and systems where a traditional vi is wanted with few moving parts.

Warum Paket-Nerds sich dafür interessieren

OpenVi is interesting because it packages a lineage rather than a feature race: Berkeley vi to nvi to OpenBSD vi to a portable downstream. For package nerds, that makes it a compact case study in base-system code being exported into package-manager space.

Zeitleiste

• 1996: nvi 1.79 becomes the ancestor named by the OpenVi README for OpenBSD vi.
• 2020s: OpenVi is distributed as a portable OpenBSD vi for Unix-like systems and appears in package managers including Homebrew, Alpine, and Nix.
• 2026: Homebrew packages OpenVi 7.7.32 with ovi, oex, and oview.

Related projects

• OpenVi is related to OpenBSD vi, nvi, nvi2, Elvis, Vim, Neovim, and other small Unix editor ports that preserve traditional ex/vi behavior.

Quellen

• https://formulae.brew.sh/formula/openvi
• https://github.com/johnsonjh/OpenVi
• https://github.com/lacamera/nvi
• https://man.openbsd.org/vi
• source_facts.brew:openvi