The original author of VIP was Masahiko Sato. The Manual and VIP 4.3 is based on his VIP 3.5 Manual and Code.
Jean-Jacques Moreau contributed code to get small changes with the `$' sign instead of through the minibuffer. He also put in the completer hooks, and ex commands :pwd, :cd, and :recover.
Jeff Lewis contributed code to make Ex style motion possible.
Many contributors on the net pointed out bugs.
Finally, my advisor Roy Campbell at Illinois did not mind my spending inordinate amounts of time on VIP.