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Porting complex applications (especially those written in C) from x86 to ARM can be pretty non-trivial.

I can't speak to the GIMP code in particular, but I've done several x86->ARM source ports of other complex software, and each time there are things which work on x86 and don't work on ARM, resulting in nasty crashes, or worse.

See here for one of those (not AArch64, but ARM nonetheless): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22176285

GIMP already supported ARM though, this is about "Apple Silicon". Since the post itself doesn't mention specific challenges, I guess it serves more to inform macOS users of the availability than foster discussion or provide any insight.

It's taking wins of open source, and handing them to closed platforms.

Would you rather see it locked down to a single "open" platform?

I'd rather see more people using and contributing to the genuinely open platforms. (This is an old problem, going back decades.)

Part of it is a bit like an even older dynamic: "Why buy the cow, when you can have the milk for free?"

How else will GNU Hurd ever take off?

Sarcasm aside, I think making open source software work everywhere is a win for open source. Making it run well is yet another win.

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