> So now we're at a fork of a fork?

This history is full of such "forks of forks" (whatever you're trying to imply with that):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Unix#/media/File:Un...

  There is a Smile of Love 
  And there is a Smile of Deceit 
  And there is a Smile of Smiles
  In which these two Smiles meet 

  And there is a Frown of Hate 
  And there is a Frown of disdain 
  And there is a Frown of Frowns
  Which you strive to forget in vain 

  -- William Blake, The Smile of Smiles

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47468/the-smile

I'm not trying to imply anything with that other than that it seems the original fork seems to have failed in its stated goals of being the community-led, non-commercialized version.

Yeah it's unfortunate. Allegedly Roman wrote those goals but the other co-founders never really went along with them.

Neovim is a fork of VIM which was a fork of Stevie which was a fork of vi which was a fork of ed, and it's the piece of software I use probably more than anything.

Vim was not a fork, neither were other things on your list apart from neovim.

How not? it literally took the source from Stevie and applied changes to it.

Stevie?

I mean... Yeah, why not? That's one of the reasons FOSS is nice: people who are willing to maintain/contribute don't have to put up with a project going rogue.

oh boy wait until he hears about biology