5 ms·

Interview with Øyvind Kolås, GIMP developer (2017)

140 points by ibobev 8mo ago

Aldipower 8mo ago
What a mindset. Deep respect! "And it turns out there are a couple hundred people already who would like me to continue writing code and sharing it publicly and openly. That at least sustains me roughly on the level of unemployment benefits in European countries. And I hope that this will even slightly increase – I will not have a Silicon Valley level software developer salary, but I’ll have enough money to cover my expenses."
- layer8 8mo ago
  Username checks out. ;)
yanhangyhy 8mo ago
That’s a cool name..
- Aldipower 8mo ago
  Kamelåså? Ah, Kamelåså!
  - nextstepfan 8mo ago
    You just bought 1000 litres of milk!
  - pezezin 8mo ago
    Syggelekokle?
- jccx70 8mo ago
  [dead]
aaron695 8mo ago
[dead]
nanis 8mo ago
> 2026-02-22 by GIMP Team I am confused > This interview took place on February 4th, 2017
- ReluctantLaser 8mo ago
  No need to be confused, the opening paragraphs explain the discrepancy
  - nanis 8mo ago
    > Unfortunately, the rest of the interviews from that event have never seen the light of day - until now! Not really -- It invites speculation as to why they were not published for 9 years. And, are the words spoken a decade ago still valid?
    - ReluctantLaser 8mo ago
      Sure, but it explains the dates. Which is all that you originality highlighted as your confusion. Perhaps you can query them directly about your other curiosities? I think the interview is interesting regardless if some of the details within are dated or not.
    - cmyk_student 8mo ago
      They weren't published because the person who interviewed everyone is now the project maintainer, and ran out of time to do transcriptions. :) I volunteered to help with transcription, so I was given several audio recordings and started working on them. The first "resurfaced" one was Simon Budig: https://www.gimp.org/news/2025/11/01/simon-budig-interview-ww2017/ https://www.gimp.org/news/2025/11/01/simon-budig-interview-w... There's about 4 more from another event which I'll be working on between coding and other things. There's definitely some material that's a bit dated (for instance, the comment about non-destructive editing), but I think it's still interesting insight into development.
deleted 8mo ago
[deleted]
jrm4 8mo ago
[flagged]
- as1mov 8mo ago
  If the dev team had a nickel for every time someone complained about the name, there would have enough money by now to fund the development of a UI revamp. Now if they had a nickel for everytime someone complained about the bad UI...
  - InsideOutSanta 8mo ago
    But do they want to do a full UI revamp? My impression is that a lot of people in the gimp ecosystem are happy to be aggressively unwelcoming to a broader audience. They don't see the name or the poor ux as a bug, but as a feature, and actively attack people who want to fix these issue. They call then "snowflakes" and "SJWs" and are gleeful when they fail to make any kinds of improvements. Some of these people can be found in this very thread. The problem with gimp is not one of budgets, it's that many of the people involved in gimp see its current state as how things should be.
    - cmyk_student 8mo ago
      I can't speak for everyone, but as developers we are trying to emphasis UX/UI work more. We have a dedicated repo now for user feedback, designs, and proposed solutions: https://gitlab.gnome.org/Teams/GIMP/Design/gimp-ux/-/issues https://gitlab.gnome.org/Teams/GIMP/Design/gimp-ux/-/issues We implement from there as we can, once consensus has been reached. We also highlight UX/UI improvements in each new release post. Just like with coding, we rely on volunteers to help with this (you definitely don't want someone like me deciding on interfaces!) We have a couple active designers assisting us, but we're always looking for more feedback!
    - as1mov 8mo ago
      > They don't see the name or the poor ux as a bug, but as a feature, and actively attack people who want to fix these issue. They will probably not attack people who want to fix these issues, but only those who leave drive-by one liner low effort comments about the UI.
VimEscapeArtist 8mo ago
Maybe it's the GIMP developer who should be interviewing someone who can build a decent UI and actually understands UX.
- cmyk_student 8mo ago
  We do now have a UX repo to ask for user UX/UI reports and feedback - anyone can contribute, no coding required: https://gitlab.gnome.org/Teams/GIMP/Design/gimp-ux/-/issues https://gitlab.gnome.org/Teams/GIMP/Design/gimp-ux/-/issues Our release posts now regularly feature a UX/UI section where we highlight the work being done. We've implemented a lot of low-hanging fruit and localized fixes, while we continue to grow our design volunteer group and build larger designs.
  - wetpaws 8mo ago
    [dead]
- jccx70 8mo ago
  [dead]
sinnickal 8mo ago
GimpKrita would be perfect
addend 8mo ago
On my Windows PC it takes GIMP 15 seconds to start and get into a state where I can edit. It loads palettes, initializes and what not, according to the splash screen text. That's too slow, so I never use it for quick image edits like crop, scale or color changes. But that in turn has the effect that I never learn the unusual UI. Which means that for more complex task I avoid it too. Other zero cost tools like the web based Photopea loads super fast and mimics the UI of leading image editing suites. It thus beats GIMP on both quick and easy tasks and more complex tasks.
- jdboyd 8mo ago
  If it started faster, you still probably would find it a bit unwieldy for crop scale and simple color changes. I wish it did those things better, but on the other hand it seems like it would be appropriate to have a simpler program for quick tasks as well. And I say this as somebody who rather likes the gimp.
pinkmuffinere 8mo ago
I love gimp, it is the only “heavyweight” image editor I ever learned to use, and that choice has saved me so much money in software subscriptions! Thankyou maintainers!
- hungryhobbit 8mo ago
  I love the contrast between this and one of the next comments: >In my honest opinion, GIMP is a horrific piece of software. Both are absolutely true! GIMP has been, for many years, the best free graphics software available. At the same time, it's so horribly anti-user (and anti-usability) that if it wasn't free software, the company behind it would have gone bankrupt a long time ago.
  - tadfisher 8mo ago
    "Anti-user' and "anti-usability" are far too harsh. Outdated, yes. A product of 1990s-era UX design, absolutely. But every changelog has some mention of a UX improvement, and actually using the product at version 3.0 is, dare I say, pretty enjoyable once you unlearn things and pretend it's Photoshop 6.0. Single-window mode by default helps a ton. I have used far worse software from commercial outfits. You would not believe how much aerospace and specialized CAD stuff still uses Motif and doesn't support scroll wheels or extra mouse buttons.
    - locallost 8mo ago
      The one saving grace one might find is that a lot of people trying it already had some experience with e.g. Photoshoot and are already influenced by it. And just because Photoshop does it one way doesn't mean it's the way. But honestly, no, it's just bad bad. Thanks for all the hard work for free, but it's just really difficult to use[1]. It would've been better to do less. [1]gave up on it 10 years ago, so don't know, maybe things changed
    - b112 8mo ago
      My biggest beef is the UI constantly goes through massive changes at each release. Options moved, mysterious new configs, literally it is as if you're using an entirely new piece of software every few years. For those of you who daily drive GIMP, well you'll be up to speed quickly. For those of us that use it once a month or so, for a day, it quickly becomes exceptionally annoying. I'm happy if the UI isn't the best. I frankly don't care what the software looks like, or if the GUI is purdy. I just want it to work, work well, and frankly that menu items don't magically disappear, get merged into other sub-menus, or that now you can suddenly close a tool, and never ever get it back without finding some obscure menu item to re-activate it. And if you use GIMP frequently, and are about to say "But, that's easy, you just..." then you're not a casual user. There are more casual users than you think. (this goes right up there with devs who change config options in files from option= to Option=, and configs= to config=. I mean, leave it alone. Forever. "Updated config options to bring them inline with StudlyCaps" or whatever turns my day into a ragefest filled anxiety attack on upgrade. "Changed all config names to US English from British spelling." What?! OK b112, you now have to deal. I don't want to deal. I want to eat doritos.)
richard_chase 8mo ago
In my honest opinion, GIMP is a horrific piece of software.
- wetpaws 8mo ago
  [dead]
- deleted 8mo ago
  [deleted]
jccx70 8mo ago
[dead]
senko 8mo ago
Most of the comments here talk about the GIMP UX. Fair point, but misses the article entirely. > [Øyvind] is the maintainer of GEGL and babl, the color engines of GIMP. His work was instrumental in (among many other things) the long-waited non-destructive filters implemented in GIMP 3.0 The interview is about Pippin's background (fine arts) and current (as of the time of the interview) work, and in some details about the graphics engine underneath GIMP (GEGL). FWIW, it doesn't touch on the UI/UX side at all. So even you Photoshop lovers may find it interesting :)
iamnothere 8mo ago
I don’t often do much with image editing, so GIMP has been perfectly adequate for me for decades. I’ve never rented a copy of Photoshop and don’t care about it. I’ve noticed small but consistent improvements over the years. People who complain about the UX should just go use Photoshop. It’s fine. Layers work well, retouching and filters are easy. I don’t really understand the complaints. I’m very glad GIMP exists, and I hope it continues to make FOSS haters cope and seethe for the next 50 years. Keep whining about the name please!
- lynndotpy 8mo ago
  The people who want GIMP to change its name are the people who use GIMP, love GIMP, and have difficulties using GIMP in contexts like education or employment because of its name. It's a simple fact that the name "GIMP" caused problems. It's a shame. But there's not much use in changing the name now, you can't get that lost time back. GIMP isn't the only FOSS image editor available anymore. There are myriad of Photoshop competitors in the subscription, freeware, and FOSS spaces. I love GIMP and I'm still using it because I've got decades of muscle memory. But I also love Krita and if I need to edit something on a work computer, I'll just use that.
- DonHopkins 8mo ago
  People who hate GIMP's name are not "FOSS haters". They just hate it when certain people in the FOSS community make the entire FOSS community look bad. Here is a typical attempt to justify the name "GIMP", demanding that society change instead of admitting the name has obviously terrible meanings: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38236618 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38236618 _c3ag>first thing that pops is a phrase of some biologist regards why evolution made plants green and not blue (physically, blue can absorb way more energy from the sun)... SPOILER: because makes the plantae organisms way more stable rather than performant (which opens up less windows for failings regards evolution). i use Gimp for digital collages, dead simple pixel-art and even composing a poem book for my beloved one! and that tool if it isn't perfect for the job, is probably about adjusting expectations ¶ why society can't re-signify a offensive word? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38237328 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38237328 DonHopkins on Nov 12, 2023 | parent | context | favorite | on: Is this radical redesign of GIMP possible now? Sorry, but the number of people who have seen Pulp Fiction, plus the number of people who know derogatory terms for disabled people, is much greater than the number of people who know technical biological terms of art. If the GIMP developers really want to score an edgy rhetorical point about how society should get over its uptight wokeness and let them use any word they want whenever they want, and that's the hill they choose to die on, then how about they go all in, and try convincing society to re-signify the n-word by using it IN ALL UPPER CASE as the name of a hard-to-use paint program with an overly complex incomprehensible user interface for TempleOS, then come back to me after a few years and let me know how well that went. Prejudice by Tim Minchin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVN_0qvuhhw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVN_0qvuhhw At least the Blender developers finally listened to reason, admitted they made a mistake, and switched the left and right mouse button behavior, which wasn't nearly as offensive to as many people as "GIMP", whose name makes it kind of hard to evangelize around the school or office without coming off like a flaming MAGA asshole. Donald Trump appears to mock a reporter's disability: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdLfkhxIH5Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdLfkhxIH5Q By stubbornly refusing to change the name, the Gimp developers have lost the right to whine and feel sorry for themselves about how unpopular it is and how nobody takes them seriously. Because in the intervening 25 years since 1998, 4chan and GamerGate and MAGA and Q-Anon and January 6 and Elon Musk have kind of spoiled the coolness and originality of that rebellious "edgelord" attitude. If you have to explain to people, "I'm not really ableist, but I am simply participating in performance art to resignify a derogatory slang term for handicapped people or submissive S&M sex slaves as the name of a paint program!" you have already lost them.
smallstepforman 8mo ago
I must be the only GIMP user that has never complained about the UX. But I have never used Photoshop so I’m not fighting muscle memory.
- lynndotpy 8mo ago
  I think it might be muscle memory. I started using GIMP in 2005 or so before the single window mode, and my muscle memory is tailor-fit to it. It felt like an extension of myself. With GIMP 3, there are a lot of improvements! But it also breaks my muscle memory a lot. GIMP 3 is objectively better, but I find myself opening 2.10 regularly.
- tsumnia 8mo ago
  I started with GIMP and still pull it up first before worrying about Photoshop. For me, the "fighting muscle memory" comes from "huh, GIMP does it like this..."
- _s_a_m_ 8mo ago
  How do you wanna complain if you dont know anything else?
wileydragonfly 8mo ago
I like GIMP and I’ve unlearned a lot of my photoshop muscle memory but the name is a huge problem and I have to say “yes, I know, the name is unfortunate” every single time I introduce it to someone new. I’ll carry this burden because it’s free software but it is so annoying.
coolThingsFirst 8mo ago
Did you guys notice something? This is from 2017 and it’s a throwback there no longer are such articles, now it’s all about AI.
Koshkin 8mo ago
I see a huge problem with Latin alphabet (with or without modifications) being shared among different languages is that it is almost never transliterated from one such language to another (I think the Baltic and the Slavs may still be doing that), which can make foreign names look like something imagined by a low-key LLM. How am I supposed to say 'Andrzei Chrząszcz' or, for an easier one, say, 'Buôn Ma Thuột.'

140 points by ibobev 8mo ago

What a mindset. Deep respect! "And it turns out there are a couple hundred people already who would like me to continue writing code and sharing it publicly and openly. That at least sustains me roughly on the level of unemployment benefits in European countries. And I hope that this will even slightly increase – I will not have a Silicon Valley level software developer salary, but I’ll have enough money to cover my expenses."

layer8 8mo ago
Username checks out. ;)

yanhangyhy 8mo ago

That’s a cool name..

Aldipower 8mo ago
Kamelåså? Ah, Kamelåså!
- nextstepfan 8mo ago
  You just bought 1000 litres of milk!
- pezezin 8mo ago
  Syggelekokle?
jccx70 8mo ago
[dead]

aaron695 8mo ago

[dead]

nanis 8mo ago

> 2026-02-22 by GIMP Team I am confused > This interview took place on February 4th, 2017

ReluctantLaser 8mo ago
No need to be confused, the opening paragraphs explain the discrepancy
- nanis 8mo ago
  > Unfortunately, the rest of the interviews from that event have never seen the light of day - until now! Not really -- It invites speculation as to why they were not published for 9 years. And, are the words spoken a decade ago still valid?
  - ReluctantLaser 8mo ago
    Sure, but it explains the dates. Which is all that you originality highlighted as your confusion. Perhaps you can query them directly about your other curiosities? I think the interview is interesting regardless if some of the details within are dated or not.
  - cmyk_student 8mo ago
    They weren't published because the person who interviewed everyone is now the project maintainer, and ran out of time to do transcriptions. :) I volunteered to help with transcription, so I was given several audio recordings and started working on them. The first "resurfaced" one was Simon Budig: https://www.gimp.org/news/2025/11/01/simon-budig-interview-ww2017/ https://www.gimp.org/news/2025/11/01/simon-budig-interview-w... There's about 4 more from another event which I'll be working on between coding and other things. There's definitely some material that's a bit dated (for instance, the comment about non-destructive editing), but I think it's still interesting insight into development.

deleted 8mo ago

[deleted]

jrm4 8mo ago

[flagged]

as1mov 8mo ago
If the dev team had a nickel for every time someone complained about the name, there would have enough money by now to fund the development of a UI revamp. Now if they had a nickel for everytime someone complained about the bad UI...
- InsideOutSanta 8mo ago
  But do they want to do a full UI revamp? My impression is that a lot of people in the gimp ecosystem are happy to be aggressively unwelcoming to a broader audience. They don't see the name or the poor ux as a bug, but as a feature, and actively attack people who want to fix these issue. They call then "snowflakes" and "SJWs" and are gleeful when they fail to make any kinds of improvements. Some of these people can be found in this very thread. The problem with gimp is not one of budgets, it's that many of the people involved in gimp see its current state as how things should be.
  - cmyk_student 8mo ago
    I can't speak for everyone, but as developers we are trying to emphasis UX/UI work more. We have a dedicated repo now for user feedback, designs, and proposed solutions: https://gitlab.gnome.org/Teams/GIMP/Design/gimp-ux/-/issues https://gitlab.gnome.org/Teams/GIMP/Design/gimp-ux/-/issues We implement from there as we can, once consensus has been reached. We also highlight UX/UI improvements in each new release post. Just like with coding, we rely on volunteers to help with this (you definitely don't want someone like me deciding on interfaces!) We have a couple active designers assisting us, but we're always looking for more feedback!
  - as1mov 8mo ago
    > They don't see the name or the poor ux as a bug, but as a feature, and actively attack people who want to fix these issue. They will probably not attack people who want to fix these issues, but only those who leave drive-by one liner low effort comments about the UI.

VimEscapeArtist 8mo ago

Maybe it's the GIMP developer who should be interviewing someone who can build a decent UI and actually understands UX.

cmyk_student 8mo ago
We do now have a UX repo to ask for user UX/UI reports and feedback - anyone can contribute, no coding required: https://gitlab.gnome.org/Teams/GIMP/Design/gimp-ux/-/issues https://gitlab.gnome.org/Teams/GIMP/Design/gimp-ux/-/issues Our release posts now regularly feature a UX/UI section where we highlight the work being done. We've implemented a lot of low-hanging fruit and localized fixes, while we continue to grow our design volunteer group and build larger designs.
- wetpaws 8mo ago
  [dead]
jccx70 8mo ago
[dead]

sinnickal 8mo ago

GimpKrita would be perfect

addend 8mo ago

On my Windows PC it takes GIMP 15 seconds to start and get into a state where I can edit. It loads palettes, initializes and what not, according to the splash screen text. That's too slow, so I never use it for quick image edits like crop, scale or color changes. But that in turn has the effect that I never learn the unusual UI. Which means that for more complex task I avoid it too. Other zero cost tools like the web based Photopea loads super fast and mimics the UI of leading image editing suites. It thus beats GIMP on both quick and easy tasks and more complex tasks.

jdboyd 8mo ago
If it started faster, you still probably would find it a bit unwieldy for crop scale and simple color changes. I wish it did those things better, but on the other hand it seems like it would be appropriate to have a simpler program for quick tasks as well. And I say this as somebody who rather likes the gimp.

pinkmuffinere 8mo ago

I love gimp, it is the only “heavyweight” image editor I ever learned to use, and that choice has saved me so much money in software subscriptions! Thankyou maintainers!

hungryhobbit 8mo ago
I love the contrast between this and one of the next comments: >In my honest opinion, GIMP is a horrific piece of software. Both are absolutely true! GIMP has been, for many years, the best free graphics software available. At the same time, it's so horribly anti-user (and anti-usability) that if it wasn't free software, the company behind it would have gone bankrupt a long time ago.
- tadfisher 8mo ago
  "Anti-user' and "anti-usability" are far too harsh. Outdated, yes. A product of 1990s-era UX design, absolutely. But every changelog has some mention of a UX improvement, and actually using the product at version 3.0 is, dare I say, pretty enjoyable once you unlearn things and pretend it's Photoshop 6.0. Single-window mode by default helps a ton. I have used far worse software from commercial outfits. You would not believe how much aerospace and specialized CAD stuff still uses Motif and doesn't support scroll wheels or extra mouse buttons.
  - locallost 8mo ago
    The one saving grace one might find is that a lot of people trying it already had some experience with e.g. Photoshoot and are already influenced by it. And just because Photoshop does it one way doesn't mean it's the way. But honestly, no, it's just bad bad. Thanks for all the hard work for free, but it's just really difficult to use[1]. It would've been better to do less. [1]gave up on it 10 years ago, so don't know, maybe things changed
  - b112 8mo ago
    My biggest beef is the UI constantly goes through massive changes at each release. Options moved, mysterious new configs, literally it is as if you're using an entirely new piece of software every few years. For those of you who daily drive GIMP, well you'll be up to speed quickly. For those of us that use it once a month or so, for a day, it quickly becomes exceptionally annoying. I'm happy if the UI isn't the best. I frankly don't care what the software looks like, or if the GUI is purdy. I just want it to work, work well, and frankly that menu items don't magically disappear, get merged into other sub-menus, or that now you can suddenly close a tool, and never ever get it back without finding some obscure menu item to re-activate it. And if you use GIMP frequently, and are about to say "But, that's easy, you just..." then you're not a casual user. There are more casual users than you think. (this goes right up there with devs who change config options in files from option= to Option=, and configs= to config=. I mean, leave it alone. Forever. "Updated config options to bring them inline with StudlyCaps" or whatever turns my day into a ragefest filled anxiety attack on upgrade. "Changed all config names to US English from British spelling." What?! OK b112, you now have to deal. I don't want to deal. I want to eat doritos.)

richard_chase 8mo ago

In my honest opinion, GIMP is a horrific piece of software.

wetpaws 8mo ago
[dead]
deleted 8mo ago
[deleted]

jccx70 8mo ago

[dead]

senko 8mo ago

Most of the comments here talk about the GIMP UX. Fair point, but misses the article entirely. > [Øyvind] is the maintainer of GEGL and babl, the color engines of GIMP. His work was instrumental in (among many other things) the long-waited non-destructive filters implemented in GIMP 3.0 The interview is about Pippin's background (fine arts) and current (as of the time of the interview) work, and in some details about the graphics engine underneath GIMP (GEGL). FWIW, it doesn't touch on the UI/UX side at all. So even you Photoshop lovers may find it interesting :)

iamnothere 8mo ago

I don’t often do much with image editing, so GIMP has been perfectly adequate for me for decades. I’ve never rented a copy of Photoshop and don’t care about it. I’ve noticed small but consistent improvements over the years. People who complain about the UX should just go use Photoshop. It’s fine. Layers work well, retouching and filters are easy. I don’t really understand the complaints. I’m very glad GIMP exists, and I hope it continues to make FOSS haters cope and seethe for the next 50 years. Keep whining about the name please!

lynndotpy 8mo ago
The people who want GIMP to change its name are the people who use GIMP, love GIMP, and have difficulties using GIMP in contexts like education or employment because of its name. It's a simple fact that the name "GIMP" caused problems. It's a shame. But there's not much use in changing the name now, you can't get that lost time back. GIMP isn't the only FOSS image editor available anymore. There are myriad of Photoshop competitors in the subscription, freeware, and FOSS spaces. I love GIMP and I'm still using it because I've got decades of muscle memory. But I also love Krita and if I need to edit something on a work computer, I'll just use that.
DonHopkins 8mo ago
People who hate GIMP's name are not "FOSS haters". They just hate it when certain people in the FOSS community make the entire FOSS community look bad. Here is a typical attempt to justify the name "GIMP", demanding that society change instead of admitting the name has obviously terrible meanings: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38236618 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38236618 _c3ag>first thing that pops is a phrase of some biologist regards why evolution made plants green and not blue (physically, blue can absorb way more energy from the sun)... SPOILER: because makes the plantae organisms way more stable rather than performant (which opens up less windows for failings regards evolution). i use Gimp for digital collages, dead simple pixel-art and even composing a poem book for my beloved one! and that tool if it isn't perfect for the job, is probably about adjusting expectations ¶ why society can't re-signify a offensive word? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38237328 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38237328 DonHopkins on Nov 12, 2023 | parent | context | favorite | on: Is this radical redesign of GIMP possible now? Sorry, but the number of people who have seen Pulp Fiction, plus the number of people who know derogatory terms for disabled people, is much greater than the number of people who know technical biological terms of art. If the GIMP developers really want to score an edgy rhetorical point about how society should get over its uptight wokeness and let them use any word they want whenever they want, and that's the hill they choose to die on, then how about they go all in, and try convincing society to re-signify the n-word by using it IN ALL UPPER CASE as the name of a hard-to-use paint program with an overly complex incomprehensible user interface for TempleOS, then come back to me after a few years and let me know how well that went. Prejudice by Tim Minchin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVN_0qvuhhw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVN_0qvuhhw At least the Blender developers finally listened to reason, admitted they made a mistake, and switched the left and right mouse button behavior, which wasn't nearly as offensive to as many people as "GIMP", whose name makes it kind of hard to evangelize around the school or office without coming off like a flaming MAGA asshole. Donald Trump appears to mock a reporter's disability: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdLfkhxIH5Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdLfkhxIH5Q By stubbornly refusing to change the name, the Gimp developers have lost the right to whine and feel sorry for themselves about how unpopular it is and how nobody takes them seriously. Because in the intervening 25 years since 1998, 4chan and GamerGate and MAGA and Q-Anon and January 6 and Elon Musk have kind of spoiled the coolness and originality of that rebellious "edgelord" attitude. If you have to explain to people, "I'm not really ableist, but I am simply participating in performance art to resignify a derogatory slang term for handicapped people or submissive S&M sex slaves as the name of a paint program!" you have already lost them.

smallstepforman 8mo ago

I must be the only GIMP user that has never complained about the UX. But I have never used Photoshop so I’m not fighting muscle memory.

lynndotpy 8mo ago
I think it might be muscle memory. I started using GIMP in 2005 or so before the single window mode, and my muscle memory is tailor-fit to it. It felt like an extension of myself. With GIMP 3, there are a lot of improvements! But it also breaks my muscle memory a lot. GIMP 3 is objectively better, but I find myself opening 2.10 regularly.
tsumnia 8mo ago
I started with GIMP and still pull it up first before worrying about Photoshop. For me, the "fighting muscle memory" comes from "huh, GIMP does it like this..."
_s_a_m_ 8mo ago
How do you wanna complain if you dont know anything else?

wileydragonfly 8mo ago

I like GIMP and I’ve unlearned a lot of my photoshop muscle memory but the name is a huge problem and I have to say “yes, I know, the name is unfortunate” every single time I introduce it to someone new. I’ll carry this burden because it’s free software but it is so annoying.

coolThingsFirst 8mo ago

Did you guys notice something? This is from 2017 and it’s a throwback there no longer are such articles, now it’s all about AI.

Koshkin 8mo ago

I see a huge problem with Latin alphabet (with or without modifications) being shared among different languages is that it is almost never transliterated from one such language to another (I think the Baltic and the Slavs may still be doing that), which can make foreign names look like something imagined by a low-key LLM. How am I supposed to say 'Andrzei Chrząszcz' or, for an easier one, say, 'Buôn Ma Thuột.'