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Well, given that it is open source software, have you ever considered contributing? I'm not trying to be dick. I know that just because you can spot flaws doesn

by dzmien 8y ago

Well, given that it is open source software, have you ever considered contributing? I'm not trying to be dick. I know that just because you can spot flaws doesn't necessarily mean you know how to improve them, nor are you obligated to just because it is open source. But I bet you could offer some valuable feedback and/or ideas.

wastedhours 8y ago
I think the barriers are quite often that collaboration around contributions happens in developer centric platforms. Am not sure what it is for GIMP, but often it's Github or IRC or some message board, which works really well for developer contributions, but then for things like UI design, marketing proposals, social media sign off etc... it's less than ideal. I'd like to help contribute to some projects where I can lend a (non-development) hand, but being code-based projects, they don't feel set up to accept it.
billyhoffman 8y ago
There is a tremendous amount of inertia that most be overcome to make changes to the UI. I don't just mean technical inertia which is probably large given GIMP's size and long history, but also people inertia. UI tends to be the ultimate bikeshedding [1] blackhole. Few people have an opinion about how a denoising filter should be implemented. Several orders of magnitude more have feelings about the UI should look and the workflow should function. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_triviality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_triviality
- wongarsu 8y ago
  The most viable path would likely be to fork GIMP (while merging in their updates), make a better UI without being bound to the original project, and if the new UI turns out to be much better offer to merge it back into the GIMP project. You could conceivably raise enough money from stakeholders to do this properly with a few experienced UI developers, proper user testing etc.

by dzmien 8y ago

wastedhours 8y ago

I think the barriers are quite often that collaboration around contributions happens in developer centric platforms. Am not sure what it is for GIMP, but often it's Github or IRC or some message board, which works really well for developer contributions, but then for things like UI design, marketing proposals, social media sign off etc... it's less than ideal. I'd like to help contribute to some projects where I can lend a (non-development) hand, but being code-based projects, they don't feel set up to accept it.

billyhoffman 8y ago

There is a tremendous amount of inertia that most be overcome to make changes to the UI. I don't just mean technical inertia which is probably large given GIMP's size and long history, but also people inertia. UI tends to be the ultimate bikeshedding [1] blackhole. Few people have an opinion about how a denoising filter should be implemented. Several orders of magnitude more have feelings about the UI should look and the workflow should function. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_triviality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_triviality

wongarsu 8y ago
The most viable path would likely be to fork GIMP (while merging in their updates), make a better UI without being bound to the original project, and if the new UI turns out to be much better offer to merge it back into the GIMP project. You could conceivably raise enough money from stakeholders to do this properly with a few experienced UI developers, proper user testing etc.