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Comment by thih9 | Hacker News Reader

> they could not have imagined that they would be adding a word to the dictionary.

Adobe tries to fight that, as this leads to genericization[1]. Their trademark guidelines[2] state a number of examples, like:

"Always capitalize and use trademarks in their correct form. Correct: The image was enhanced with Adobe® Photoshop® Elements software. Incorrect: The image was photoshopped."

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generic_trademark

[2]: https://www.adobe.com/legal/permissions/trademarks.html

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I believe it's now well into the realm of genericization.[1] Xerox lost a major lawsuit relatedly, iirc.

[1] e.g, https://www.consumerreports.org/consumerist/15-product-trade...

I understand the pressure they're under, but nobody's going to say that...

"Oh you're not actually using Linux, that's GNU/Linux"

TIL, "Linux", without the "GNU/" prefix is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds.

https://ubuntu.com/legal/trademarks#:~:text=Linux%C2%AE%20is....

So (in the US, at least), it's "Linux(TM)" and not "GNU/Linux" - I'm going to love using this the next time anyone goes uhmackshully to me.

Uhmackshully, since it's registered, it's "Linux®". The ™ is for unregistered trademarks.

Hoisted by my own petard!

I’m sure they know that. The text is there so that they can stand up in court and point to it, not because they think people will actually follow the instructions.

It's just like "LEGO® bricks." They're desperately trying to avoid genericization but it's way too late and nobody is going to say that informally. All companies want you to use their trademarks as capitalized adjectives but nobody can make you, personally, do that. But it does help with their official corporate partners who will follow the guidance if they want to stay in Adobe/LEGO's good graces.

I photoshopped an image with Gimp.

While using GIMP

No you didn't. No one actually uses Gimp. We just say 'Gimp is a replacement for photoshop' and pretend that is actually an acceptable solution for people using Linux.

(Btw I switched to Krita and I'm never going back to Gimp. Even the things Gimp should be good at, Krita is better.)

Personally I crop screenshots with GIMP twice a year and it's absolutely fine for that. Not sure what your problem is.

If your use-case is "crop screenshots", your competition isn't Photoshop, it's MS Paint.

There aren't many image editors that are able to crop pictures in a usable way. MS Paint for example can't do that. I wonder if the "move this rectangle" method is under patents.

Maybe you mean something different by "cropping", but drawing a rectangle followed by ctrl+c then ctrl+n is fairly quick / good enough

If there was a linux port of paint, I'd consider it. Until then, GIMP is fine.

Check out Pinta. It does basic image editing pretty well, imo.

jspaint.app has you covered

GIMP is the screenshot cropping tool, or for when you want to write a Lisp program to do a single, technically-precise thing to an image. Krita for everything else!

I'm still waiting for the Krita equivalent of Inkscape.

I use Lisp extensions all the time for things people claim GIMP can't do, like draw certain shapes.

GIMP is to Emacs as Photoshop is to Intellij. Both GIMP and Emacs are fairly lean out of the box; it is meant to be molded into what the user wants. The problem is the target audience of Emacs is much more keen on programmatically modifying their systems than the target audience of GIMP.

sounds like exactly what ronin is for

tutorial/example video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgAWGh1s9zg

What issues do you have with Inkscape? I've used it for both (semi-)professional and personal work, and the UX is quite pleasant.

Inkscape is buggy, especially when clipping. Sometimes layers or filters aren't shown properly. Editing filters is a bit arcane.

When I first started using Inkscape, I disliked all the dialog boxes, but I'm used to them now.

It's a semi-decent SVG editor (if you ignore all the XML Editor crashes), but you can't draw in it.

Krita can't print.

I gimped an image with Adobe Photoshop®

That sounds accurate.

such a terrible name

Nobody’s ever accused open source of being good at naming stuff

Do the users find the name terrible though? I'm pretty sure on at least 3 different occasions I heard someone excitely yelling "time to bring out the GIMP!" or some such when they needed to do some quick photo editing.

Case in point: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4CjOB0y9nI&t=2518s

Yeah, GIMP is an awesome name. It's fun and playful, one of the better named programs out there imo.

I, as the Krita maintainer, hereby give everyone the right to verb the trademarked name "krita". Whether it's I "krittered that concept" or "I kritaed that sketch" -- it's fine!

The only thing you cannot do with the trademarked name krita is publish rip-off, spyware-laden versions in places like eBay.

Except Krita is a word in Swedish so good luck trademarking that one here :-)

Side note: Thank you for your work! My non-technical partner was able to create and print postcards that had to be in CMYK format, thanks to Krita. You made her very happy :-)

Much more effectively, Velcro's been trying the same thing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRi8LptvFZY

It still won't work in the long run, but I'm very aware now that Velcro is a trademarked name.

Is genericization really a problem though?

Yes, companies can lose the exclusive right to their mark if the brand is sufficiently genericized. Just ask Frisbee, (Kawasaki) Jet Ski, ChapStick, Velcro, Lego, Band-Aid, Jacuzzi, the list goes on.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_generic_and_genericize...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generic_trademark

Most annoyingly, IMO: Sriracha.

The Huy Fong guy decided not to trademark the term, and consequently in the last few years, everyone is selling a Sriracha sauce, all of which are grossly inferior to the original.

I've tried many of them, being lately in a Huy Fong desert, and esp during their period of production issues.

There are a couple of also-rans, rating maybe 7 stars out of 10. They do not taste like real Sriracha, but they're OK. If they didn't call themselves Sriracha, I might appreciate them more.

I don't think that's any more annoying than "ketchup" or "barbecue" sauce not being trademarked. I hear the sauce made by their original pepper suppliers is pretty good though.

I've tried it, and I do not like it. The flavor is boring.

Checking up on Huy Fong today, I discovered that they have announced another production disruption this month, expected to last until Labor Day. Their pepper supply is too green.

I appreciate their dedication to product! Yes it's a serious supply chain management failure, but I can accept that their requirements are difficult for vendors to meet. A substandard Sriracha might be better than no Sriracha, but there are plenty of substandard vendors already. I'll wait for Huy Fong to get the good stuff sorted out.

I hope they resolve this issue soon and permanently. Maybe they and their old pepper grower can make amends, for the good of humanity.

Yes, just ask Velcro™: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRi8LptvFZY

Of course. A trademark exists to mutually protect consumers and businesses from deceptive advertising. When a term referring to a specific product becomes a term for a product category etc, trademark protections then becomes harmful to consumers, but they still benefit the business. If you're building a brand generally you want to be as close to the legal limit as possible without exceeding it

There are jurisdictions where genericide is explicitly outlawed.

ehh... I am not sure,

A photo shop was a thing long before adobe made some software that could replace an entire photo shop and called it... Photoshop. Verb your nouns and that thing you do in a photo shop becomes "to photoshop"

I think the insistence on using the "Adobe® Photoshop®" is more that the term is already sort of generic and they are on shaky ground from the start. Sort of like windows, or dos, Microsoft goes hard always calling it "Microsoft Windows®" or "MS DOS®" because just windows, or disk operating system are already very generic terms.

https://youtube.com/v/BR6F0EdyulA?t=404 (dave plummer)

Not that this will stop them from trying to sue you if you release products using those terms, Gotta give the lawyers something to do after all. Otherwise they would just be sitting around wasting money.

This is in contrast to Xerox a term invented specifically for a new invention and the company that invented it.

It doesn't necessarily matter if you follow their guidelines or not, this is all legal facade so that they can retain their trademark. In the majority of instances, they simply have to show they made efforts to retain their unique trademark. They don't care that you say "I photoshopped X" they just care that GIMP isn't marketed as "GIMP: Open Source Photoshop" (or similar instances).

"Always capitalize and use trademarks in their correct form.

Incorrect: The image was photoshopped.

Correct: The image was enhanced with GIMP software."

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