GIMP open source image editor forked to fix 'problematic' name - Surprisingly, Dale Emhke nowhere to be seen.

GIMP open source image editor forked to fix 'problematic' name

Release the GIMP: Glimpse project founded to avoid branding that some find offensive

www.theregister.co.uk

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Release the GIMP: Glimpse project founded to avoid branding that some find offensive
By Tim Anderson 28 Aug 2019 at 13:50
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GIMP is capable open source software, but is the name a barrier to adoption?
Interview Glimpse is a fork of the popular open source image editor, GIMP, created primarily to offer the software under an alternative name.
GIMP is a longstanding project, first announced in November 1995. The name was originally an acronym for eneral Image Manipulation Program but this was changed to GNU Image Manipulation Program.
The new fork springs from a discussion on Gitlab, where the source code is hosted. The discussion has been hidden but is available on web archives here. A topic titled "Consider renaming GIMP to a less offensive name," opened by developer Christopher Davis, stated:

I'd like to propose renaming GIMP, due to the baggage behind the name. The most modern and often used version of the word "gimp" is an ableist insult. This is also the colloquial usage of the word. In addition to the pain of the definition, there's also the marketability issue. Acronyms are difficult to remember, and they end up pronounced instead of read as their parts. "GIMP" does not give a hint towards the function of the app, and it's hard to market something that's either used as an insult or a sex reference.

The proposal was supported by another developer, Leonora Tindall, who noted that "I have, on two occasions now, recommended this program to photography and graphic design educators (as an alternative to Photoshop) who told me that they considered it and found it good as software but weren't permitted by their institution to use it in the classroom because of the name."
Others opined that changing the name of long-established software would hurt its recognition and usage. The discussion became bad-tempered and caught the attention of Bobby Moss, whose day job is a technical writer at Oracle.
"I'm a long-standing user of the project," he told The Reg. "I saw the abuse and unpleasant things being said to Chris. It was decidedly not cool and not how we should make decisions in free software. I also thought the arguments he made were well reasoned, not focused so much on the offensiveness of the name but on the marketability of the application."
Moss therefore forked the project into a new one called Glimpse.
"Initially I thought it was just going to be a quirky project on my own private GitHub but people expressed enthusiasm for it. It's evolved now into this new thing where you’ve got multiple people running it, myself, Chris who originally posted the issue, and another woman called Clipsey … it's all kind of ballooned out from there."
The subject of the suitability of the name is not new, and is enshrined in the official FAQ:

"I don't like the name GIMP. Will you change it?"
With all due respect, no. We’ve been using the name GIMP for more than 20 years and it's widely known … on top of that, we feel that in the long run, sterilization of language will do more harm than good. … Finally, if you still have strong feelings about the name "GIMP", you should feel free to promote the use of the long form GNU Image Manipulation Program or maintain your own releases of the software under a different name.

The Glimpse project is therefore entirely within the spirit of open source. "We believe free software should be accessible to everyone, and in this case a re-brand is both a desirable and very straightforward fix that could attract a whole new generation of users and contributors," says the About page.
The team wish to continue using the upstream GIMP project libraries and are asking for donations to GIMP as well as Glimpse.
The developers are planning more than just a name change, including a "front-end UI rewrite" according to an update posted a week ago. The team is looking at screenshots of existing image editing application user interfaces to inform design mockups. There is also a discussion about language choices. Rust with GTK (Gnome Toolkit) bindings, perhaps? C++ and Qt?
Changing the user interface is more challenging than changing the name. We wonder if it is all a little too much to take on?
It is "a long-term plan, maybe a few years down the road," says Moss. "It's something people are looking at in parallel. The main focus at the moment is just tracking the upstream releases, and making changes to them. When we hit GNU image manipulation program version 3, they'll have completed their port to GTK 3, and that's where we are looking to do a hard fork and can start getting more ambitious with user interface changes.
"A lot of the functionality is actually in a set of libraries. Those components would still be used and any changes we made to them would be contributed back.
"Even if our project falls flat on its face, at least we've brought new people and new interest to a code base that's been out for a while and probably needs a bit more love from the community than it currently enjoys." ®

 

[Van Darkholme]

Bring out the gimp.

 

[Duke Nukem]

Rename it CHIMP, problem solved.

Then they'll claim it's racist or something.

Hey, if you're the one associating certain demographics with primates, you have no right to accuse anyone else of anything.

 

[Tasty Tatty]

"I'm not remotely involved in this project, but I wish I was, so in order to attach my name to it, I'm gonna scream and yell how problematic is so they can solve it and credit me as the savior!"

Go fork yourselves.

 

[Red Hood]

Then they'll claim it's racist or something.

Hey, if you're the one associating certain demographics with primates, you have no right to accuse anyone else of anything.

Alternately, why not PIMP? Or BLIMP? Or maybe LIMP?

 

[Smaug's Smokey Hole]

There are almost no women in software development. If it's some stupid fantasy/anime/outdated name parents would never use like leonora it's always a tranny. Always. The funny thing is these low effort trannies look like your typical 90s nerd who often also had long hair, adding to the confusion. (at least for fossils like me) Also it's only fossils like me who actually remember the term gimp being used. we also called people just plain re-tarded.

Also isn't photoshop one of these software as a service things because they couldn't figure out how to staple new features onto a new version without making it look like a complete bullshit money-making scheme? How do you even pirate those?

If someone in the open source world has their humours disturbed by sensitivity issues related to weird sex and that person has a woman-like name then it always a troon. And I agree with him looking like a stereotypical male nerd, his second shirt might just be a Dragonforce one.

When Adobe announced that they were moving everything to the creative cloud(the CC in their product names) platform people got upset. They assured everyone there would be no problems and all fears were unfounded.
When they launched it their licensing servers didn't work so no one could use it for a couple of days. Except those who pirated it, the pirates cracked and released it the same day or it might even have been a few days before launch. That's the dumb part about always-online DRM, it makes pirating the software so much more appealing because it straight up works better. I haven't had any problems with Photoshop CC yet, it's just so annoying that when installing it it installs a cloud drive, a bunch of other crap and the Adobe equivalent to EA Origin.

Some people have started jumping ship from Adobe Premiere because of the always-online thing because it's such a hassle to use on the go, if you go away and shoot something where there's no internet or cell coverage and want to take that footage into Premiere you're fucked because it can't confirm that your subscription is still paid up or that you're not trying to cheat them out of $20 by messing with the system clock.

 

[Scandinadian Bacon]

So what you're saying is that as long as I keep using GIMP I won't have to hear about this annoying sideshow because the problem has gone and removed itself?

 

[Duke Nukem]

Alternately, why not PIMP? Or BLIMP? Or maybe LIMP?

Painting Image Manipulation Program? Basic Learning Image Manipulation Program? Or Limited Image Manipulation Program?

The possibilities are endless.

 

[Dr. Sexbot]

Also isn't photoshop one of these software as a service things because they couldn't figure out how to staple new features onto a new version without making it look like a complete bullshit money-making scheme? How do you even pirate those?

Oh, it runs locally, there's just DRM and a more gradual trickle of features. You can still gank it.

 

[X Prime]

Also isn't photoshop one of these software as a service things because they couldn't figure out how to staple new features onto a new version without making it look like a complete bullshit money-making scheme? How do you even pirate those?

There is literally a program to pirate Adobe's entire Creative Suite called CCMaker.

It is easier than buying it by miles, and you even get full access to their cloud servers if you want to take some extra steps.

 

[Michaelsoft]

/g/ has a plan.

 

[Clop]

I'm not quite sure what you mean by this so I'll have to look it up.

Edit: I looked up krita multibrush and it looks like a symmetry tool.

CLIP STUDIO PAINT Instruction Manual - Symmetrical ruler

Is this what you were looking for?

Yeah, the symmetrical ruler seems to do the same job, I'll have to take a look at how detailed it can get. Thanks for the assist.

 

[TokiBun]

You've never heard someone make fun of "that kid with the gimpy leg?" It's a legacy term for a crippled or handicapped appendage, with a gimp being the person owning said handicap. I guess it's a more folksy word for crip and crippled, that wasn't stigmatized as strongly. Then the sexual definition took over and had prominence for decades.

Just pirate Photoshop, they actually WANT you to use it. All the real licensing comes from businesses, not individual private users.

Now that you’ve mentioned it I have heard of the term Gimpy. But I thought it related to getting crippled during BDSM, not just being crippled. Weird I know.

 

[Gar For Archer]

Now that you’ve mentioned it I have heard of the term Gimpy. But I thought it related to getting crippled during BDSM, not just being crippled. Weird I know.

I’ve seen it used as the non-gaming form of “nerfed”, such as:
“The latest Windows update totally gimped the start screen, it’s a total piece of shit now!”

 

[X Prime]

Just pirate Photoshop, they actually WANT you to use it. All the real licensing comes from businesses, not individual private users.

Adobe supposedly retains the right to cause a shitstorm by asking for proof of your license if you, say, post something on DeviantArt where you claim to have used Photoshop.

However, that may be an urban myth.

 

[moocow]

post something on DeviantArt where you claim to have used Photoshop.

Seems like the best way to avoid that particular problem is pretty obvious.

 

[TJ-Weber]

They should have doubled down and re-named themselves the GIMP-SUITe

 

[La Luz Extinguido]

Rename it CHIMP, problem solved.

More like, WIMP am I rite?

 

[Dysnomia]

They shouldn't bend over to these people, who are probably the same group complaining about USB dongle jokes.

And I guarantee none of them are real gimps. Just able bodied people who make a living being offended for people they deem too fragile and stupid to understand that they are being offended.

 

[awoo]

A bit late but to the surprise of no one it's dead in the water: https://github.com/glimpse-editor/Glimpse

If you had any doubts, look at these very productive commits: https://github.com/glimpse-editor/Glimpse/commit/ab26e9f072e23bbf4906fe9c8436767a5d12b613

From ab26e9f072e23bbf4906fe9c8436767a5d12b613 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Bobby Moss <45732696+TrechNex@users.noreply.github.com>
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 2020 04:22:25 +0100
Subject: [PATCH] Revert "Refactored libgimp* to libglimpse*"

This reverts commit 288e58e50cb77779714cbf7fb9467ecf74d748d5.

Fixed conflicts

Resolve conflicts in po-libgimp

First attempt at fixing duplicates

Fixed duplicate entries and conflicts with po-libgimp

Fixed duplicates in po-plug-ins

Updated po-plug-ins translation files

Fixed breakage in po-python

This is hilarious. Even their attempt at changing the name failed

Funny in retrospect. Who could've saw this coming? "

Why will this project be any different from GIMP? #482​

Let's put it this way - GIMP is nowhere near being a contender on the market. At this point, Procreate the ipad app is 10 times as popular as Gimp. Photoshop is not even in the same universe. Compare this to 3d editing software world where Blender is easily one of the most popular solutions even among people who can buy Maya or 3ds max. The amount of developer attention to Blender is insane, GIMP - not so much.


To make Glimpse be the next Blender, not the next abandoned Gimp fork that had even less users, there needs to be a "lessons learnt", a postmortem, an honest and data-driven discussion about what went wrong and how can that be fixed.

Why will this project be any different from GIMP? · Issue #482 · glimpse-editor/Glimpse

Let's put it this way - GIMP is nowhere near being a contender on the market. At this point, Procreate the ipad app is 10 times as popular as Gimp. Photoshop is not even in the same universe. Compa...

github.com

 

[Weeb Slinger]

A tech writer forked it? Was a receptionist unavailable?

Of course, he's from Portland.

He strikes me as the kind of man who wiles away his evenings in a gimp suit, shackled to a ring in the corner of his bedroom, while his wife and her boyfriend try for another baby.