Great, one less thing, thanks. LAB would be awesome as well.
We really need an open source alternative to Photoshop. I just don’t know if gimp will ever be it.
We really need an open source alternative to Photoshop. I just don’t know if gimp will ever be it.
Names have a lot of meaning, you think about it constantly, if you are thinking about a crippled person unconsciously even while developing software, maybe that is why Gimp is in the state it is.
Many Open Source projects are just named damn stupidly, like with the KDE suite does it really make any sense naming your projects starting with "K" just to follow the KDE ?
Or with Gnome you have so many stupid project names, beginning with the whole name "Gnome". All I can think is a forest gnome when I think about that desktop environment. Maybe it's supposed to be Ge-nome, but who thinks it's a good idea to call a desktop environment a small dwarf like bearded old person .. Combine that with Gnome Gimp, you have a crippled forest gnome handling your image editing, nice.
Everytime I try Linux and it's modern desktop environments, the application names just make me cringe, it's like somebody just decided that "Yeah hey naming conventions for software don't matter, just call it the terminal emulator "Kerminal" or whatever shit that suites the stupid naming scheme.
Its weird when people complain about minor things like multiple windows or name when actually doing something with the program is much more complicated.
Me too. As a non native English speaker I didn't think about that first, but then I saw Pulp Fiction.
Oh wait. That's who makes it. I guess they spoiled their own name. Never mind.
...Somebody once called me the Emily Litella of the net.
I am aware of "gimp" as a derogatory term, but it pops up so infrequently, its primary connotation for me has become this piece of software. I imagine plenty of other non-native speakers would similarly only have a loose connotation to the meaning as an insult.
In other words, while names may sometimes be important, I think this case is not an instance of that for the majority of people on the planet.
This is also the way our language perception generally works: The word is just the signifier, a variable. The meaning, the significate, is not inherent in the word itself.
If enough people say "gimp" and mean the software, that becomes the default inference.
They should change the name; it's difficult to understand why the maintainers are so attached to something so self-defeating.
I think name changes are like bug fixes: the later in the life cycle you go for it, the more expensive. Whether that is worth the cost... in the case of Gimp and git: for you maybe yes, for me decidedly no. Doesn't mean either of us is more right than the other, but does say something about how we feel about using and talking about these pieces of software.
Proprietary software is often stupidly named too, yet we take it seriously. I feel like for some people it's not the name, but the lack of associated cost that moves GIMP to the 'hobby utility' category for them.
(And yes, I'm aware Linus named Git as an insult on purpose and that he wanted to call Linux something weird too, like Freax - the questions is, why does it matter?)
I don't think these people are faking it. Words have always seemed to have power.
When my wife and I were considering names for our child, there was one name in particular where she said that she could never name her child that. She had hated (HATED, apparently) a girl with the same name in primary school. The look on her face. The real emotions in her eyes. That name was definitely out.
I have seen people get in physical fights purely over a few words and name-calling.
I personally do not feel this way about words. I think we should not let words have such power over us. But for some people, words do matter that much.
As such, we have a choice when naming something. We can either ignore this power of words and risk having the name itself hold back adoption of the [product, service, whatever], or we can be aware of this power and conscious and conscientious in choosing how to name the thing.
There are people who assume malice on the part of the developers refusing to change a name that has over 20 years of 'name recognition' behind it, for better or worse. It's those people that, despite understanding their concerns to a large degree, actually make it less likely that naming will be considerate in the future.
It also doesn't help that the suggested replacement names are not much better, GIMP was forked as Glimpse because of the name. Glimpse has all sorts of potentially creepy/negative behaviors associated with it as well if one goes into it trying to analyze the name as flawed.
To me Gimp is a pretty meaningless word, though I guess that's mostly because I'm a non-native speaker and the word seems to be used so infrequently that I have a hard time judging how it's perceived in general. But usually people don't think twice about the name of brands or products if they're used to it, and are able (though not always willing) to see things in context. I doubt that Gimp's popularity would increase with a name change, critics mainly seem to have issues with the UI. Either way I use it because it does everything I need with a pretty reasonable learning curve.
Edit: Apparently gimp is also an insult directed to disabled people (I just learned).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpAvcGcEc0k
https://montycasinos.com/montypython/scripts/argument.php.ht...
>A: (under his breath) stupid git.
"git" can mean anything, depending on your mood.
- random three-letter combination that is pronounceable, and not actually used by any common UNIX command. The fact that it is a mispronounciation of "get" may or may not be relevant.
- stupid. contemptible and despicable. simple. Take your pick from the dictionary of slang.
- "global information tracker": you're in a good mood, and it actually works for you. Angels sing, and a light suddenly fills the room.
- "goddamn idiotic truckload of sh*t": when it breaks
I'm not sayint that the k-names are great and new kde applications try to avoid using it, but then a big company does it and has a big marketing budget, nobody minds it.
That's why I think 'Krita' is a good name, and 'Konqueror' not so much.
But this is many times the problem with open source desktop environments, and I don't really see any easy way to fix it .. some people have tried to create unified experiences, but those are mostly forgotten with time.
You misread your parent commenter. They meant "cheesy" as a negative thing.
> I wish there was some committee or some board of members trying to actually design the whole user experience
There is: the Visual Design Group [1].
> But this is many times the problem with open source desktop environments
Oh, and Gnome too: https://wiki.gnome.org/Design So that's two of the two major open source DE that actually have teams "trying to actually design the whole user experience".
Feel free to join them.
About Gimp, this is a word that does not mean anything in most parts of the world. But actually, I think most people don't care that much. Names is not the among the problems people mention when they struggle with the open source world.
huh? it's absolutely not, it's goofy as hell. I regularly have contacts / clients / etc... be like "gmail ? that's not serious".
One expects a name@company.com style structure for professionals. It being called Gmail is not relevant.
Honestly, picking up about Gmail name in 2022 is a bit anachronistic.
Being associated with uninventive names like GMail, Linux or Konqueror is a pretty comfortable level of goofiness for a professional setting. They don't mean anything, maybe we can all groan at how uninventive they are, but at least they are boring and have no real connotations and won't tempt me to make a joke that'd annoy HR. I wouldn't be the only one thinking that either.
The difference is these big companies spend a lot of time thinking about the application names, iPhone is genius in how simple it is.
I mean there are good names also, Linux in itself is a good name for example, it's unique and doesn't sound dorky. And Firefox and some others, I'm not blaming all of them.
Gimp might have been a good name in the mid-to-late 90s when the development of Gimp and Gnome began, but still sticking to it just doesn't make much sense to me.
Name is least of Gimp's concerns. Backronym it to GNU/Gnome Imp, presto.
Bigger problem is they took so long to add CMYK support.
Some people consider gimp to mean some kind of bdsm latex freak.
Rebrand it as GNU imp, put some wings on mascot, presto. Problem, solved.
As opposed to Gee Mail or Eye Tunes. Don't think either would do so great as "Gail" or just "Tunes". One thing I noticed in a foreign country is that our brains fill in the details a lot when listening and that extra syllable really narrows down the possible words and sounds that you might be hearing.
iTunes
iMac
iPhone
iPad
iPod
Okay, this is a Linux thing.
How does "KMail" sound like phonetically ? KayMail ? KeiMeil ? It just doesn't give the same vibe. The designers at Apple know that "iPhone" means something to the user.
Even gPhone would be better, but Google has that covered already. KDE doesn't really stand for anything or it's phonetical counterpart doesn't communicate anything meaningful to the user.
I just looked it up and, K used to stand for "Kool", but already that is not a real word, doesn't look good or even sound good, at least to my ears or thinking.
Also iMac came from "Internet" back then, so it had multiple meanings behind it.
Stupid like "windows" for a windowing system or "word" for a word processor or "mail" for an email client or "iMessage" for a messaging system, or Pages, Numbers, or everything starting with an "i" from Apple, or everything g by Google or the endless stream of startup named like their name was created using one of those "startup name generator"?
I am a non native english speaker, if I had not discovered much of the software I know of,including Photoshop, in the late 80s when I was a kid and didn't know English I would have thought software companies were run by idiots.
But lucky me (and them) Photoshop now for me it's just a name with no actual meaning.
Is Krita worse than Photoshop as a name? Is Blender worse than Maya?
are Chrome or Safari or Edge really better than Firefox?
I'm not sure.
The horror!
See this https://apps.gnome.org/
Wait, really? The name of the tool is something to think about "constantly"? Why?!
To me, seriously dismissing a tool because of the name is like failing an IQ test. It is a sign of someone that wants to be spoon-fed by any sort of shit that is offered by the big companies, as long as it is packaged in nice colors.
Or even more not so extreme examples, for examples let's say your music player would be called "Brown Juice" or something like that, would you be happy about that application, vs for example "iTunes" or "Soundamp" or whatever.
You know these are extreme examples but just show you that the power of words is very clear in what kind of images they create in our thinking, I bet if Gimp would change their software name to something like "GNU PhotoEdit" or something like that, more people would be willing unconsciously to work and improve it also vs working on this "Gimp" that still uses that silly logo with the Gnome Mascot. It's very unprofessional and you wont attract the best designers or developers if you don't think about the big picture.
That's just my view on the thing. The package and nice colors matter, but of course the interiors and working of the software is that matters more, and on that frontend Gimp just doesn't cut it. What I'm trying to say is that maybe they could make the software better by changing it's name and design.
I mean, no professional uses Gimp for photo editing, at least I don't know anyone besides some hobbyist who rarely use photo editing, they might use Gimp. Or am I wrong ?
Argumentum ad absurdum.
> I mean, no professional uses Gimp for photo editing
Perhaps because the lack of CMYK, the limited architecture for plugin, or the outdated UI have more to do than the name?
If the name was the real bottleneck for adoption, you can be sure that you'd see someone creating a fork with different branding and being widely successful. Oh, wait. It has been tried already! [0]
Check out https://www.rosiehardy.com/. Rosie is a commercially successful photographer who has been using GIMP for years.
I guess it depends on what you need it for. As someone who's a software developer and occasionally dabbles in video game development or some very basic design, GIMP is perfectly suitable for what I need. I actually haven't used Photoshop in years and don't really feel like anything at all is missing for my use cases.
Things like sometimes creating images for my blog posts, or favicons for my sites. Or touching up photos or removing some details, or maybe creating some textures for a video game/visualization. GIMP is just there and works well enough. For even more basic (or batch) processing, I'd also recommend XnView: https://www.xnview.com/en/ or IrfanView: https://www.irfanview.com/
That said, the quality of FOSS software is all over the place:
* since the UI/UX revamp, I'd say that Blender is one of the better and more high quality packages out there, what FOSS *should* be like
* software like GIMP, LibreOffice and Kdenlive take a middle spot: fully functional, decent quality, good enough to be a daily driver
* software like Inkscape and OpenShot are at the bottom of the barrel: only workable if there are no alternatives, bad performance and unstable, bad UI/UX and so onWhat a shame.
For now I use Krita because... Well, adjustment layers.
I don't miss Photoshop at all.
Also: Have you considered contributing a patch to do background loading after GNU Image starts?
Functionalities and workflow matter.
If they are just, now, adding CMYK support (Photoshop has had CMYK for many years, as CMYK has been critical for printers), I suspect that you may be correct.
Maybe it has changed but everytime I see gimp I'm reluctant to open it. too many bad memories...
They should just copy what works.
There is this tutorial on YT right now: "How to Download and Install Adobe Photoshop CC 2021 Free Trial". It's got 755K views.
Do you really think your YT tutorials argument holds any water? :)