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They have a roadmap for which version it will be in - a roadmap that's been out there for years. Complaining that you don't have non-destructive adjustment layers for a version that's definitely not supposed to have it is a waste of time.

Is the roadmap influenced by when patents expire?

Edit: that would be a smart reason to plan so far ahead & delay features

No - it's just a list of logical steps. Things they need to implement before they can tackle adjustment layers. The reason it is taking so long is because it's a lot of work.

We are not aware of any patents affecting the development of GIMP.

> People are waiting for non-destructive adjustment layers for over 10 years now.

10 years? That's nothing!

I've been waiting 30 years for someone to throw a bunch of cash on my lap while I'm sitting in the sofa. Nobody, I mean literally NOBODY has done that yet.

Bunch of selfish people, that's what I think!

30 years? Looxury! When I were a lad we had to wait 50 years for breakfast, every morning.

In the snow. Uphill. Both ways.

Just pouring some salt into your wounds: this video <https://youtu.be/RBL1cVzIQik> is over nine years old :^)

(I don't think it's exactly the same, but at least similar)

The GIMP roadmap indicates they're hoping support non-destructive editing in 3.2: https://wiki.gimp.org/index.php/Roadmap#GIMP_3.2

They apparently haven't thought about how to implement it yet.

looks like the prep work for it (porting to GEGL and gtk3) will finally be done in this version though, so you know, the slow bird probably also eventually catches the worm

Gimp is a volunteer-run open source project. You ready to get cracking on that patch?

Non-destructive adjustment laters are pretty much must-have for a image editing software for it to be taken seriously. It’s something the GIMP devs should be focusing on, not something that a random person on the internet does on their free time. Especially considering it has been a well requested feature for over 10 years.

Ps. you’re not going to get anyone to commit anything with that kind of message. You’re just driving people away from oss.

Most of the current developers _are_ random people on the internet who decided to contribute to it in their free time. If you have noticed, repeatedly asking for a feature when it's already on the roadmap as a high priority item and has been there for some years also does not help the feature get implemented any faster.

They just should have done what Krita did - gather money, hire developers full time.

That requires administrative staff to run the fundraiser, handle the accounting, do the hiring...

GIMP does theoretically have indirect access to administrative staff from the FSF through GNU, I think?

Well, a few things. It would be GNOME Foundation, but historically they have existed mostly to coordinate volunteers and have been reluctant to hire developers because of that. (It creates conflicts of interest) In general, the people who are good at fundraising are already heavily in demand and they know it.

Plus, the lead developer(s) would have to commit to increased management responsibilities in order for it to happen, and they don't seem to be willing to for various reasons.

s/They just should have done/I will do/ please.

And you should have done what Bezos did and become a multimillionaire.

> Non-destructive adjustment laters are pretty much must-have for a image editing software for it to be taken seriously

I use GIMP all the time and this is something I've never even though about. Seems like an unwarranted sweeping generalization.

I think it depends on what you do. They are really useful for e.g. web design, anything where you may want to re-use an effect, possibly come back later to adjust it everywhere you used it. For web design specifically you can often just prototype with css3 now, but it would be really nice to have this in gimp, and it does look like this version was a major step towards getting there

Yes, let's add non-destructive editing on top of horrible design decisions, unmaintained UI toolkit with a crapton of bugs, semi-working graphic tablets support, barely working custom HiDPI support etc. What a splendid idea you got there :)

TFA lists improvements to graphics tablet support, HiDPI support, and — in the title itself — switching to a more maintained UI toolkit.

1) That is precisely my point. End-users often think that new stuff can be easily added on top of older stuff, and if developers don't do that, they are just stupid, shortsighted, or whatever. For 2.10, we had to finish the GEGL port to give people much anticipated things like high bit depth precision editing (up to 32f per channel). For 3.0, we now have to port GIMP to an actually maintained version of GTK because some things are just broken for good in GTK2, this is mostly done and will be polished in the 2.99.x series. Once it's done, we will have the solid foundations to expose non-destructive editing (unless someone really clever arrives to hack it into v3.0 but I wouldn't hold my breath for that).

2) I'm the guy who wrote a chunk of that release notes (and most of the release notes in the past 10+ years). You don't need to babytalk to me about any of that stuff :)

The GP didn't babytalk you. They just pointed out a seeming contradiction.

Lashing out at bystanders & spamming passive-aggressive smilies does not cultivate trust in GIMP's leadership.

I couldn't care less about people who see one smiley face and go completely berserk. I never met you. I don't know anything about you. I will forget you in a few minutes.

I certainly hope you'll forget about me. It's unhealthy to nurse grudges against random, online commenters.

Otherwise, all that building resentment will feed back into your insecurities, which will distort your sensitivity to criticism and magnify your next explosion.

That is prokoudine's point: you need to get the fundamental switch to GTK3 done first and only then start to implement non-destructive editing.

GTK wouldn’t exist without GIMP, so I’m willing to forgive them for that :)

I am getting tired of HN shitting on volunteer work especially when a new milestone is reached after literally years of effort.

Then don't read the thread (it's always the same conversation anyway) but it's a fact that Gimp (like another prominent software in its own domain) is often presented as a Photoshop replacement and personally I can't switch to GIMP because I rely a lot on non-destructive filters.

Or maybe don't post accusative comments on how people aren't spending their free time on the stuff you want?

Then just close the comment section for Gimp release because what more can be said apart from 'thanks' then if critics aren't welcome/tolerated or interpreted as "you are shitting on people's work".

The question is: can Gimp be criticized ? Obviously, from all the Gimp thread I saw, HN isn't the place to have a conversation about it.

edit: now that I think about it it seems to me that Firefox is taking way more heat when a release is announced.

edit2: to be fair, I do agree the parent could have worded things like "Still no non-destructive filtering but it's on the roadmap" or something like that. I am certainly not shitting on Gimp but I tend to react to people who claim it's a 1-1 photoshop replacement, it's simply not true. It doesn't mean Gimp hasn't huge advantages over Photoshop. Every photographer I know and who use it prefer it to Photoshop after some time, same when you need to automate or need some custom plugin to manipulate images.

The problem isn't that people are posting "Hey, I'd really like to use GIMP but I'm still waiting for feature X", the problem is the accusative nature of the comments.

The top comment that started this thread definitely had more than an accusatory aftertaste to it. I can't find the story/interview right now, but GIMP is literally just something like 3 or 4 guys working on it in their spare time.

For a lot of folks, GIMP is a fine photoshop alternative, even for more advanced uses. Is it perfect? Obviously not. But remember, it's just a bunch of devs in their spare time. Don't like it? Then don't use it, these people really don't owe anyone anything. How many devs are working on photoshop full-time? It's fine to point out "unfortunately GIMP isn't quite there as a 1-to-1 photoshop alternative, because [...]", but IMO it's important to do this in a way that doesn't crap all over the dev's best efforts.

I worked on a few projects where people felt they had the desire to come in and say that I "must" implement feature X or Y because "commercial product Y has it". Like, mate, I'm just this random guy with a day job and hobbies outside of software that occasionally works on this. Glad it's useful to you, but you don't tell me what to do. It's probably not your intention, but these kind of comments come off as really shitty.

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