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Looking into it, Krita does seem very capable. I don't think we should really be mad at healthy competition existing in these spaces though, they should lead to

Looking into it, Krita does seem very capable. I don't think we should really be mad at healthy competition existing in these spaces though, they should lead to better tools for end users.

lmm 4y ago
Only if better tools are actually getting into users' hands though. I don't know what exactly has gone wrong, but somehow it's the Gimp that keeps getting recommended to those end users.
- ipaddr 4y ago
  It's installed by default in some linux repos. Getting that changed would go a long way. Thanks for the information I will check it out
- melagonster 4y ago
  yes, I try to find some opensource software to treat my png file. Google lead me to GIMP, it is not bad so I keep using.
- filmgirlcw 4y ago
  Yeah, I think this is a good point. GIMP has been a default app on so many distros for so many years (to say nothing of existing on virtually every copy pasta “best FOSS/Linux/Free apps list” that lazy SEO bloggers (and now YouTubers) have been making for decades), it’s become just one of those defacto apps that gets all the attention/is the go-to suggestion, even though it isn’t the best option for a lot of people. And that would be fine if there was a robust community around the project, but there isn’t? Like, I’m not blaming the few maintainers and I’m not blaming the dwindling third party community at all. But I am going to be critical of the distros that continue to install it by default (Ubuntu dropped it as a default many years back IIRC, but Debian and Fedora still include it) and the people that just parrot it as what new users should use, even tho the most fervent defenders admit it is not at all competitive with what you need in an image editing tool in 2022. Edit: turns out Ubuntu dropped GIMP as a default app in 2009 and someone that seems like yesterday. Changed that sentence accordingly.
oblio 4y ago
We should drop this "healthy competition" myth. Some of this software has been around as long as I've been alive. I love Open Source but we should just accept that some of it will always be mediocre at best. And as the other commenter mentioned, there are also negative consequences to something being around (mind share, presence in distributions and online docs, etc). Nobody has time to wait 4 decades for software to be good. This makes successful Open Source software like Blender or Firefox or Linux all the more impressive.
- matkoniecz 4y ago
  > some of it will always be mediocre at best Noone claims that all open source is great.
  - oblio 4y ago
    I wanted to be nice. Gimp is mediocre at best. Which is a shame for the huge volume of work put into it. Across 27 (!) years.
- midoridensha 4y ago
  This is one of the big problems with so much open-source/Free software: there's a lot of fragmentation, and competition between projects reduces mindshare and developer resources (which were already scarce). So as a result, these projects never become all that popular. There's a few counter-examples of truly exemplary FOSS software that achieved a dominant position and managed to avoid too much fragmentation so that they became largely adopted: the Linux kernel, PostgreSQL, X.org, etc. But for many others, too many wars have really caused the whole Linux-on-the-desktop dream to not be achieved to the level people hoped. GIMP is one of them, but the Gnome/KDE debacle is probably the biggest.
  - Sakos 4y ago
    You say that as if people would be working on the same project otherwise. Guaranteed if they aren't able to work on their competing project in the name of "solidarity", they probably wouldn't work on the other project instead. There are too many social and cultural barriers to being able to enact change in existing projects, which is why competing projects exist. People have different priorities, values, preferences, etc. You're never going to be able to unify all of that to the satisfaction of everybody involved and it would just lead to way too much strife and politics. Way less would get done. I hate Gnome, but I know people like it. I'm happy that both KDE and Gnome exist, because it also means the people who made the decisions about Gnome's direction won't be making those same decisions about KDE.

Looking into it, Krita does seem very capable. I don't think we should really be mad at healthy competition existing in these spaces though, they should lead to better tools for end users.

lmm 4y ago

Only if better tools are actually getting into users' hands though. I don't know what exactly has gone wrong, but somehow it's the Gimp that keeps getting recommended to those end users.

ipaddr 4y ago
It's installed by default in some linux repos. Getting that changed would go a long way. Thanks for the information I will check it out
melagonster 4y ago
yes, I try to find some opensource software to treat my png file. Google lead me to GIMP, it is not bad so I keep using.
filmgirlcw 4y ago
Yeah, I think this is a good point. GIMP has been a default app on so many distros for so many years (to say nothing of existing on virtually every copy pasta “best FOSS/Linux/Free apps list” that lazy SEO bloggers (and now YouTubers) have been making for decades), it’s become just one of those defacto apps that gets all the attention/is the go-to suggestion, even though it isn’t the best option for a lot of people. And that would be fine if there was a robust community around the project, but there isn’t? Like, I’m not blaming the few maintainers and I’m not blaming the dwindling third party community at all. But I am going to be critical of the distros that continue to install it by default (Ubuntu dropped it as a default many years back IIRC, but Debian and Fedora still include it) and the people that just parrot it as what new users should use, even tho the most fervent defenders admit it is not at all competitive with what you need in an image editing tool in 2022. Edit: turns out Ubuntu dropped GIMP as a default app in 2009 and someone that seems like yesterday. Changed that sentence accordingly.

oblio 4y ago

We should drop this "healthy competition" myth. Some of this software has been around as long as I've been alive. I love Open Source but we should just accept that some of it will always be mediocre at best. And as the other commenter mentioned, there are also negative consequences to something being around (mind share, presence in distributions and online docs, etc). Nobody has time to wait 4 decades for software to be good. This makes successful Open Source software like Blender or Firefox or Linux all the more impressive.

matkoniecz 4y ago
> some of it will always be mediocre at best Noone claims that all open source is great.
- oblio 4y ago
  I wanted to be nice. Gimp is mediocre at best. Which is a shame for the huge volume of work put into it. Across 27 (!) years.
midoridensha 4y ago
This is one of the big problems with so much open-source/Free software: there's a lot of fragmentation, and competition between projects reduces mindshare and developer resources (which were already scarce). So as a result, these projects never become all that popular. There's a few counter-examples of truly exemplary FOSS software that achieved a dominant position and managed to avoid too much fragmentation so that they became largely adopted: the Linux kernel, PostgreSQL, X.org, etc. But for many others, too many wars have really caused the whole Linux-on-the-desktop dream to not be achieved to the level people hoped. GIMP is one of them, but the Gnome/KDE debacle is probably the biggest.
- Sakos 4y ago
  You say that as if people would be working on the same project otherwise. Guaranteed if they aren't able to work on their competing project in the name of "solidarity", they probably wouldn't work on the other project instead. There are too many social and cultural barriers to being able to enact change in existing projects, which is why competing projects exist. People have different priorities, values, preferences, etc. You're never going to be able to unify all of that to the satisfaction of everybody involved and it would just lead to way too much strife and politics. Way less would get done. I hate Gnome, but I know people like it. I'm happy that both KDE and Gnome exist, because it also means the people who made the decisions about Gnome's direction won't be making those same decisions about KDE.