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(Emphasis in original. --Ed.)
GIMP is a longstanding project, first announced in November 1995. The name was originally an acronym for General 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 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.
Is now the time to accept that, to get GIMP into the mainstream, it needs a rename?
(Score: 5, Interesting) by jmorris on Saturday August 31 2019, @03:29AM (2 children)
Laughing at them should be the only response required. But we all know how this game works. It will be exactly like the CoC game, where everyone laughed at first. Then the developers with day jobs, even those unrelated to the project the tranny freak was targeting, got calls from their HR Dept and they decided to sign onto the CoC. Every Distro GIMP maintainer will get that call soon, and every one of them will decide, entirely of their own free will you understand, to adopt the fork.
These aren't technical decisions, they aren't about our Linux culture, they are entirely political decisions being made outside our industry entirely. There is to be no 'problematic' things. No names, no comments in code, no websites, no discussions, nothing. Our industry is just one being purged. And as $current_year marches onward the task of rewriting the past only grows more important. Not only will GIMP be renamed, over a few years every last comment referring to the old name will be removed. It was always Glimpse. We will all still remember but only cranks like me will dare speak it aloud. And I will be shouted down as a hater when I do.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 31 2019, @06:33PM
double plus good!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 03 2019, @03:26PM
You sure do seem to talk about trans people a lot. Seems an obsession with you... is it you want to fuck one, or you want to transition yourself and you're too scared? Come out of the closet already, it's not so bad.