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Admittedly I haven't used GIMP in a while, but the entire selection interface was awful last time I did. That's a very basic thing that was constantly annoying

Admittedly I haven't used GIMP in a while, but the entire selection interface was awful last time I did. That's a very basic thing that was constantly annoying to me. Wether I can grok it or not really doesn't matter. Normal users don't want to have to grok things. It didn't feel intuitive, and as a result it only took a few hours of using Photoshop CS3 to never want to go back.

exDM69 10y ago
Here's the thing: "normal users" looking for a free-of-charge alternative to commercial apps are not the typical target audience of open source productivity tools. They're primarily targetted to scratch the authors' own itch, and secondarily to benefit anyone who finds it useful in the hopes of more contributions. Average Joes (nor non-contributing professional artists/photographers) are typically not beneficial to these projects, at worst they are a hindrance: tons of help requests (in the bug tracker), low effort bug reports, requests for Windows/OSX binaries (without offering to help in maintenance), etc. You can find some ugly examples if you look into bug trackers / mailing lists of some of these projects. We can only hope that a benevolent philanthropist comes by and drops a few million dollars in to getting full time, paid developers into GIMP, Blender, Inkscape and all the other open source productivity tools but until that happens it's a mostly volunteer effort and the contributors can choose what to focus on. If Photoshop suits you, great. I've managed to do all my image editing in GIMP for the past 20 years and I'm very glad the project exists.
- mkohlmyr 10y ago
  I too have managed to do lots of image editing in GIMP. That doesn't mean it was a pleasant experience. I am not trying to tell the volunteers what to work on, but if we can't give honest product feedback to FOSS projects on the basis that they are volunteer efforts, then those projects will never succeed broadly. If you don't care about succeeding broadly that's fine, but I get the impression from gimp.org that they would like to. This disregard for "normal users" that often exists in the FOSS community is so completely and utterly self-defeating. If you want FOSS to succeed you need projects to be successful in the marketplace. You need "normal users" to reach that scale.
  - exDM69 10y ago
    > This disregard for "normal users" that often exists in the FOSS community is so completely and utterly self-defeating. If you want FOSS to succeed you need projects to be successful in the marketplace. You need "normal users" to reach that scale. Yes, this is unfortunate but I don't see how it could change. I'm afraid that maintaining a scale big enough to include "normal users" and competing with commercial options would require more resources (read: money for full time development) than there are volunteers available. It's not just a matter of changing attitude. The GIMP project has already exceeded the threshold of immortality and it's an invaluable tool, so I consider it a "success" regardless whether it's user friendly or competitive with commercial options.
  - prokoudine 10y ago
    > but if we can't give honest product feedback to FOSS projects on the basis that they are volunteer efforts Why can't you give feedback to the GIMP team?
    - DonHopkins 10y ago
      Because they glibly brush it off, like the way when someone makes an honest point by giving you feedback that "gimp" is an offensive term that inhibits its adoption by "normal users" in professional and educational settings, GIMP team members like yourself actively seek to be offensive and attempt to turn it around, by accusing them of being "people who apparently seek to be offended", instead of acknowledging the well know dictionary definition of the term and addressing the problem. The purpose of GIMP is to edit images, not fight political correctness or offend disabled people or reclaim offensive words. Do you understand this definition or not? https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/gimp https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/gimp The noun gimp is sometimes used to describe a limp or another physical disability, although it's an outdated and offensive word to use. If you comment on someone's gimp, call the person a gimp, or say, "Look at that guy trying to gimp across the parking lot without his crutches," you've chosen a very objectionable way to talk about a disability. People will know what you mean if you use the word, but they're likely to be offended by it. Gimp was first used in the 1920's, possibly as a combination of limp and gammy, an old slang word for "bad."

exDM69 10y ago

Here's the thing: "normal users" looking for a free-of-charge alternative to commercial apps are not the typical target audience of open source productivity tools. They're primarily targetted to scratch the authors' own itch, and secondarily to benefit anyone who finds it useful in the hopes of more contributions. Average Joes (nor non-contributing professional artists/photographers) are typically not beneficial to these projects, at worst they are a hindrance: tons of help requests (in the bug tracker), low effort bug reports, requests for Windows/OSX binaries (without offering to help in maintenance), etc. You can find some ugly examples if you look into bug trackers / mailing lists of some of these projects. We can only hope that a benevolent philanthropist comes by and drops a few million dollars in to getting full time, paid developers into GIMP, Blender, Inkscape and all the other open source productivity tools but until that happens it's a mostly volunteer effort and the contributors can choose what to focus on. If Photoshop suits you, great. I've managed to do all my image editing in GIMP for the past 20 years and I'm very glad the project exists.

mkohlmyr 10y ago
I too have managed to do lots of image editing in GIMP. That doesn't mean it was a pleasant experience. I am not trying to tell the volunteers what to work on, but if we can't give honest product feedback to FOSS projects on the basis that they are volunteer efforts, then those projects will never succeed broadly. If you don't care about succeeding broadly that's fine, but I get the impression from gimp.org that they would like to. This disregard for "normal users" that often exists in the FOSS community is so completely and utterly self-defeating. If you want FOSS to succeed you need projects to be successful in the marketplace. You need "normal users" to reach that scale.
- exDM69 10y ago
  > This disregard for "normal users" that often exists in the FOSS community is so completely and utterly self-defeating. If you want FOSS to succeed you need projects to be successful in the marketplace. You need "normal users" to reach that scale. Yes, this is unfortunate but I don't see how it could change. I'm afraid that maintaining a scale big enough to include "normal users" and competing with commercial options would require more resources (read: money for full time development) than there are volunteers available. It's not just a matter of changing attitude. The GIMP project has already exceeded the threshold of immortality and it's an invaluable tool, so I consider it a "success" regardless whether it's user friendly or competitive with commercial options.
- prokoudine 10y ago
  > but if we can't give honest product feedback to FOSS projects on the basis that they are volunteer efforts Why can't you give feedback to the GIMP team?
  - DonHopkins 10y ago
    Because they glibly brush it off, like the way when someone makes an honest point by giving you feedback that "gimp" is an offensive term that inhibits its adoption by "normal users" in professional and educational settings, GIMP team members like yourself actively seek to be offensive and attempt to turn it around, by accusing them of being "people who apparently seek to be offended", instead of acknowledging the well know dictionary definition of the term and addressing the problem. The purpose of GIMP is to edit images, not fight political correctness or offend disabled people or reclaim offensive words. Do you understand this definition or not? https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/gimp https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/gimp The noun gimp is sometimes used to describe a limp or another physical disability, although it's an outdated and offensive word to use. If you comment on someone's gimp, call the person a gimp, or say, "Look at that guy trying to gimp across the parking lot without his crutches," you've chosen a very objectionable way to talk about a disability. People will know what you mean if you use the word, but they're likely to be offended by it. Gimp was first used in the 1920's, possibly as a combination of limp and gammy, an old slang word for "bad."