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Glimpse the future name of GIMP

posted by martyb on Friday August 30 2019, @11:03PM   Printer-friendly
from the renaming-for-the-nanny-state dept.

rob_on_earth writes:

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/08/28/gimp_open_source_image_editor_forked_to_fix_problematic_name/

(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?

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 01 2019, @01:26PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 01 2019, @01:26PM (#888467)

    I've never seen anyone care about GIMP's name, apart from thinking it's a bit stupid. Not offensive, just kinda stupid.

    GIMP's issues stem from the UI being a bit of a mess. The big floating pool of icons on the side bar that shuffle around wildly based on size, the absurd default key shortcuts, the annoying workflows for doing simple tasks (the commonly cited one is "draw a circle", which is easier than generally claimed, but still not as simple as it should be), the complete lack of non-destructive editing options (really should be able to just adjust some colors at least), and the absurdly piss-poor layer management (go ahead, group 20 layers together, and notice how you're dragging them all in one by one by one -- anything involving a lot of layers in GIMP is the biggest pain in the ass).

    If Glimpse or whatever spends any effort on solving these problems (because GIMP 2.8->2.10 simply just cluttered the UI up a lot with its extra features), it might worth be caring about. Apart from that, I might as well stay with upstream if there's nothing of substance happening.