Consider Renaming Gimp to a Less Offensive Name
gitlab.gnome.org
gitlab.gnome.org
When these issues come up, and there is a perception of gatekeeping behavior, protest is normal. The developers hold the power here. And developer arguments to avoid popular change tend to become more incoherent as the popularity of the software grows, because it positions them as both serving a popular interest(lots of users, open development) and not(private whims trumping popular ones). Developers on prominent products with many users generally are not following their fancy anymore; they are making their career. If they want to sully their career, dying on this hill is a way to do it.
They do not, this is exactly the point of free software. Anyone can fork it and release their fork under a different name. Don't want to do that work? Too bad. Want to force the developers to do it? Now which party is attempting to exercise power?
The only thing the developers are doing is refusing to modify their free gift to the community to line up with other people's non-technical priorities. This is not an exercise of power — is it simply reminding people that free software contributors are not indentured servants.
If their features are good, they might get backported to the other project. That person may continue to rebase off the original as well. Eventually you might have two packages in all the major distros and CI that helps keep both trees in sync.
That really is the right way forward here. Or ... the person could just make a CI that pulls, applies a single script that renames and rebrands everything, and then rerelease packages. That's all they have to do .. and if it catches on, well then they've made a change without having to bother the original developers at all.
It is strange that the title words it as "Gimp" when GIMP has always been "GIMP", which has a very specific meaning(it stands for GNU Image Manipulation Program) that has nothing to do with the word "gimp".
I've used GIMP since I was in middle school and I have never ever known that it was a homophone for the more offensive term. I grew up in California and also never heard anyone use this term as an insult to anyone. Do non-American/English speaking GIMP users not have a say in this? Why do they have to have their GIMP become something else just because it happens to sound like a bad word in some other language?
It'll be a huge shame if they go through with this, but even if it does, I will always refer to their work as GIMP, the GNU Image Manipulation Program.
I, for one, use it every day. Have you taken a look at the discussion? Your questions are pretty thoroughly addressed, which, along with your final line here, make me think you're more interested in your desire to use ableist slurs and the holy right of software maintainers to ignore any and all criticism without consequences than anything else.
Let us be clear: Nobody in this issue thread cares _at all_ about whether it was "meant" to convey the same meaning as the word "gimp". It is factually true that people find it awkward to recommend in professional settings because of its name, and sometimes the name makes adoption impossible.
Obviously nobody can force the maintainers to do anything, but we can _ask_ them to change a superficial component of their excellent software to make it much more useful, which is what this issue was.
You have to note, "gimp" and "GIMP" mean completely different things.
As for my personal experience, I can't even recall if I have ever encountered this word. (English is not my first language).
I can't imagine changing the innocent name of my project because it happened to be a homophone of a mean word in some other language.
You're arguing in bad faith and it's making you look silly. Stop it.
Opening an issue is not forcing. It's asking. Do we at least agree there?
How about DALCOP? Which means a particularly stupid person.
Apple (North America) an American Indian (Native American) who is "red on the outside, white on the inside". Used primarily by other American Indians to indicate someone who has lost touch with their cultural identity. First used in the 1970s.
Contrast with the word "midget", which does refer to real people and is offensive, and would be a bad name for a software project. Same for "gimp".
literally nobody but these people with way too much time on their hands. NOBODY IS OFFENDED BY GIMP, and if you are, WHO CARES
Also the maintainers gave their reply as it is their prerogative to do so.
> Michael Natterer @mitch · 5 hours ago Maintainer
> Sorry, the name will not change, closing. Michael Natterer @mitch closed 5 hours ago
So JordiGH, you needn't re-open the issue https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gimp/issues/3618 and post to HN with the hopes of generating outrage against the GIMP project for not doing what you want.
As someone who likes to think that I do have as many "commits/participation" as many others, I would appreciate it if people would focus on the core argument:
It is hard to get people to use this software, who would otherwise benefit, because of their perception of the name, and it's easier to change the name once than change those perceptions every single time.
If you have problems with THAT, I'd love to discuss them, but please leave "SJWism" and whatever out of it - that's not really what's at issue here.
The reason this is important is because in recent times essentially nobodies like to pop out of the woodwork with "ideas" like this. They then like to "shame" people who don't agree with them. There's nothing wrong with expecting people to build up a reputation before suggesting divisive and controversial ideas.
https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=jordigh
The fact that this one was seen indicates that there is an issue here.
I didn't create the issue. I am only drawing attention to it. If the issue weren't a problem, it wouldn't even be possible to draw attention to it.
> The fact that this one was seen indicates that there is an issue here.
That would have been because it was showing up under /newest. There was probably a small amount of upvotes coming from the link back from the gitlab issue.
> I didn't create the issue. I am only drawing attention to it. If the issue weren't a problem, it wouldn't even be possible to draw attention to it.
No, you opened the duplicate issue after the first one was closed (not locked) by the maintainer.
I meant "I didn't create the issue" in the sense that it's not my fault that people want to change Gimp's name, not "issue" as in "id number in Gitlab". You can thwart this particular barbarian at the gate and feel content that if you attack me the question of Gimp's name is settled, until the next barbarian comes along, but there's a lot of barbarians and you'll probably be fighting this war for many years to come as long as you and other Gimp developers decide to dig in their heels and die on this hill.
So now that the original issue has been deleted, not even locked, you agree it's reasonable to open it again? Where else can this discussion continue?
Except for this? By all means consider renaming it.
Or keep it to spite everyone who comes from the outside and tries to destroy hacker culture.
Because that's what people are doing, destroying hacker culture just like we destroyed other cultures before.
Yes, in some cases the new culture is better, but why oh why do we have to destroy everything funny or unusual in the process.
This comes from someone who sometimes has to stand up for his group in other settings. Why can't society let us - and the hacker culture - alone as long as we adhere to the laws?
If the GIMP won't be a commercial success - fine. Or someone can fork it and package it under another name - fine. Or the maintainers can sell out - or even agree - fine.
But can't we stop this war against all forms of old school fun and what should I say - diversity?
So do you want diversity or conformity, then? Stop with the gatekeeping BS, please. You don't get to say what hacker culture is or who belongs in it.
I'm not gatekeeping here, only suggesting that people behave nicely in other peoples houses so to speak.
From the link I pasted it is quite clear what the GIMP maintainers used to think about this. If they reconsider I'm fine with that as well, I'm not attached to the name. But I am fed up with people coming to invade others cultures for the sake of making them acceptable to a certain subset of what seems to be extremely privileged people.
So, yes, people are currently talking about forking it.
Oh right. I forgot filing an issue presenting a calm and reasoned argument for changing one string of text to another was the same as "destroying" a project.
>"Let's see in the end which program will prosper."
is snark?
I guess snark is also in the eye of the beholder.
I'm just going to leave this right here: https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Snowflake
As it is, we're likely to either fork the project (which is underway at the moment), or build a GIMP keybinding compatibility layer for Krita; the second is less preferable because it would require quite a lot of hacking to make the more advanced features work, and would almost certainly not reach 100% parity.
As you note, either one will be a good deal of effort; another reason we wanted to at least ask the maintainers if they would be willing to accept a patch with the name change, instead.
Now what was your point, other than to insult some people whose argument you almost certainly didn't read?
Frankly, few will use your fork anyway because it provides zero value vs the established name/brand.
That's a conversation I've had, in real life, with a professor and a professional photographer.
Literally, the only thing holding them back was the name.
How is that zero value?!
Let's be real here. You can't even make a circle in GIMP without jumping through various hoops. Right now, the hurdle for those professionals is just the name, but wait until you see when they actually try using the tools. They'll happily pay for Photoshop once they realize that what they wanted after all was just a free Photoshop. This is quite a different angle I am arguing from, but it's my pragmatic side. I believe GIMP should maintain it's current userbase that was earned through over 20 years of hard work under their current name, instead of chasing customers that will unlikely appreciate their project anyway.
"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.
The name was originally (and remains) an acronym; although the word “gimp” can be used offensively in some cultures, that is not our intent.
On top of that, we feel that in the long run, sterilization of language will do more harm than good. GIMP has been quite popular for a long time in search engine results compared to the use of the word “gimp”. So we think we are on the right track to make a positive change and make “gimp” something people actually feel good about. Especially if we add all the features we’ve been meaning to implement and fix the user interface.
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."
So instead of using the name "GIMP" with your easily-offended professor and photographer, use the name "GNU Image Manipulation Program" and move on with your life. Or let them spend their hard earned cash propping up Adobe's stock price. In the end, the developers of GIMP, built it for themselves. If others don't like the app for whatever reason, name included - there are plenty of other alternatives.
At the moment I can only remember things getting worse because of marketing people. Same goes for most ux.
Being memorable and differentiating yourself is important to gaining adoption, The GIMP achieves this better than something generic like *paint. A rename may have it's merits, but it won't be automatically better.
Because of the correlation of "gimp" to "crippled".
The idea that people might be led to believe that it's a shitty editor.
The UX is shit, but for those who've masochistically gotten used to it, GIMP isn't half-bad.
Better yet, fork the product, rename it and do with it as you please. The authors are generous enough to allow that.
There are two common ways to see gimp beyond what its defenders put forward:
1: A kink thing.
2: What the kink is based on: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gimp -> https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cripple
Neither one is great for adoption.
>> "I've never heard that word used for anything else than the software."
There are a lot of words I didn't know were common slurs, or at least inaccurate or otherwise not okay until someone told me. For example: Eskimo (colonist nonsense), Gypsy (name given to Romani people based on mistaken belief they came from Egypt), Indian (some native people use it, but not all).
Learning is great.
Untrue. The most common usage is as an adjective/verb that has nothing to do with disabled people. "Switching from C to Java really gimped our performance." "Our marketing in Mexico is gimped because we didn't hire a native Spanish speaker."
Also this is pretty rich coming from GNOME, considering that's used as an insulting name for little person.
I'm a native English speaker in the US and have never heard or read "gimp" used as an adjective this way. Never.
I have heard it used as a slur against people with disabilities many times, in real life, movies, and books.
Even the usage you're claiming is the most common sounds like it's a synonym for "cripple".
The entire etymology for the word "gimp" supports that it was conceived originally as a slur and continues to be used that way.
https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/gimp
Either way, why would anyone want to download something with that name? It's embarrassing to recommend it to people.
It's used that way in Australia, the only time in my life I've heard gimp used in a derogatory way was in pulp fiction.
But this illustrates a big problem with all these PC crusades lately, they're trying to apply US (at least parts of the US) cultural norms to international projects, often at the expense of alienating most of the world.
It's not a "crusade" in any sense. It's one issue on a GitLab that someone decided to link over here (not one of the people who made the issue, I think). It is about "political correctness" only in that it's genuinely hard to get some people to even consider using this free software because, and ONLY because, of its name.
I think you should rethink your idea of a crusade if you think this is what that word means.
> It is about "political correctness" only in that it's genuinely hard to get some people to even consider using this free software because, and ONLY because, of its name.
People that vain will find something else to dislike about it.
Dictionaries aren't perfect, but they're more widely agreed-on and useful than your anecdata.
> they're trying to apply US (at least parts of the US) cultural norms to international projects
Out of 379M native English speakers[1], 234M[2] live in the US. That's about 61%. If our English-language norms are widespread, they're also likely used by a majority of native English speakers.
(That's also not including Canada, which shares many of our language norms.)
> alienating most of the world
How does changing the name of Gimp "alienate" anyone? Whose feelings would be hurt and why? Who would stop using the product out of rage?
1. https://www.ethnologue.com/statistics/size
2. https://factfinder.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/...
> Out of 379M native English speakers[1], 234M[2] live in the US. That's about 61%. If our English-language norms are widespread, they're also likely used by a majority of native English speakers.
The replies here indicate that it's not universally used in it's derogatory meaning within the US either. Not that it matters, I was talking about applying the cultural norms to the rest of the world, the culture being the PC professional standards of white collar workers in large cities. The more that get's forced into OSS, of which this is just one example of a trend, and most of the world and anyone that want's more inclusivity should be fighting against this sort of rubbish.
https://www.etymonline.com/word/gimp
"GIMP" is merely an unfortunate consequence of the editor being named "GNU Image Manipulation Editor". GIMP is the obvious acronym.
> 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.
https://www.gimp.org/docs/userfaq.html#i-dont-like-the-name-...
The problem is, how many large Linux distros will accept a new package into their package managers that is essentially the exact same thing as an existing package, just with a different name and logo assets? For this to be truly successful, it has to be as easy as `apt-get install gpaint` (insert better name here).
I probably won't be installing any more Snap packages.
Would you mind reviewing the site guidelines and sticking to them? Their intention is to try to keep this place from degrading so that it can remain interesting for all of us.