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Comment by mch82 | Hacker News Reader

I’m certain renaming GIMP would make a tremendous difference. The name is perceived as offensive & that makes it impossible for people to take seriously, especially in a corporate setting. Edit: As someone who has tried to get people using it because it’s such great software.

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I used it in my high-school multimedia class instead of Photoshop and my (female) teacher never bat an eyelid. I can't imagine many workplaces that would be more prudish than a Catholic school? The biggest obstacle I find is that people are used to Photoshop, and some tools are quite tricky to use (the alignment tool).

Someone could easily fork it and change nothing but the branding if the name was such a problem.

I'm pretty sure that the biggest threat to the adoption of GIMP isn't the name GIMP, it's Adobe doing regular Adobe things.

https://github.com/glimpse-editor/Glimpse

Maybe in America. I can assure elsewhere nobody has any idea of the offensive meaning.

We know what a gimp is, the film Pulp Fiction and the internet exist here :-)

They should rename it for americans. For the rest of the world it can stay the same.

Yep, same experience here. The name is a big problem.

I’m also unlikely to recommend it to kids, for example, because googling its name can be risky.

ROTFL. Never heard about this in 20 years. Doing an extended search shows that "gimp" is a kind of latex costume. There are worse things for kids than a latex costume. For example violence.

When I was a kid and trying to learn LaTeX this happened to me all the time on the library computers.

I do not think I have a point, you just made me remember some fun and dreadful moments.

gimp is not a latex costume

google: define gimp

> / (ɡɪmp) / noun. US and Canadian offensive, slang a physically disabled person, esp one who is lame. slang a sexual fetishist who likes to be dominated and who dresses in a leather or rubber body suit with mask, zips, and chains.

(probably from urban dictionary)