Comment 6 for bug 70569

dmuir, that isn't this bug, and it isn't actually a bug at all. All vim documentation, if I recall correctly, points out that "vi" is meant to run a traditional form of vi, which means compatible is set. The fact that "vi" runs vim with nocompatible set when anything other than vim-tiny is installed is actually wrong; if you want to run vim with nocompatible set, you are supposed to use "vim", not "vi".

Unfortunately, this has become so confused that any solution to this bug will inevitably upset some people. Personally, I know of very few people who would ever use vim in compatible mode, and that the best solution would probably be to change the documentation and make vi run vim with nocompatible set. However, it is worth pointing out that vim is not the only implementation of vi, and having it as vi could presumably lead to some confusion among a small set of people.