Post #1635625
2026-04-24 16:39 UTC
Replies (25)
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@Craigp@mastodon.social 2026-04-24 16:42
GIMP spent a decade sucking the oxygen out of open source image editing because open source advocates would say "just contribute to the porn sextime fetish sadomaso image editor" and people would say "uhhhh. I'll just keep using Photoshop, or maybe donate my coding to, uh... a mouse driver or something..."
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@kratzen@berg.mobilecourant.org 2026-04-24 17:24
@Craigp@mastodon.social I Love Gnu Image Manipulation Program, I don't not love telling people they should "Try GIMP"
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@kirenida@social.linux.pizza 2026-04-24 20:27
@Craigp@mastodon.social related:
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@hiscursedness@mastodon.art 2026-04-24 16:41
@Craigp Yepppp
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@Thad@brontosin.space 2026-04-24 16:59
@Craigp I don't think its name is the *only* thing that's been holding it back. But I agree that it's a significant factor.
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@waltertross@mastodon.online 2026-04-24 17:04
@Craigp I must say, not all the world speaks English as a first language, and those who don't, don't care much how it's called. I, for one, care more about how to verbally communicate about it. It has the same pronunciation ambiguity (for non-native English speakers) as GIF.
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@u0421793@toot.pikopublish.ing 2026-04-24 17:04
@Craigp@mastodon.social hah! This imagines that GIMP is a programme that artists and designers would willingly want to use, voluntarily. It’s just too obtuse, ugly, incorrect, and essentially faulty compared to just about any normal macOS programme out there since the 80s.
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@larsmb@mastodon.online 2026-04-24 17:05
@Craigp Got to admit, the criticism of the name, many years after first using it, was the first time I learned the word had any meaning beyond the abbreviation. (English is my second language.) Now of course I can't unsee it nor understand why they don't change it.
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@johnzajac@dice.camp 2026-04-24 17:06
@Craigp Personally, I'm now very interested in the FUCKBOI software you mentioned 🤔
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@josh@hactivedirectory.com 2026-04-24 17:07
@Craigp @eniko I Uh Would totally Run FUCKBOI Linux And uh Would also never shut up about it.
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@zabow@mastodon.bida.im 2026-04-24 17:10
@Craigp uhm... I don't think the name did as much as the messy user interface... manjaro in italian sounds silly/funny, but it's overtaking ubuntu and fedora nonetheless
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@intrepidhero@vmst.io 2026-04-24 17:17
@Craigp I agree they should have renamed GnuIMP a long time ago. But counter example, did inkscape eat a meaningful percentage of illustrator's market share?
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@brennan@social.lol 2026-04-24 17:25
@Craigp I love GIMP and they died on that hill for a reason. No need to kink shame.
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@gamingonlinux@mastodon.social 2026-04-24 17:29
@Craigp we tried with a different name, there was sooooo much hate being spread
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@dmarti@federate.social 2026-04-24 17:29
@Craigp Good point. Distributions could give this program something like the Pan newsreader treatment. Fedora packaged it but with a less "unprofessional" name. How about "GNU Image?" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan_(newsreader)
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@Haijo7@snac.haijo.eu 2026-04-24 17:36
@Craigp@mastodon.social i don't think so. most people don't know what gimp means, or what git means
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@krnlg@mastodon.social 2026-04-24 17:37
@Craigp It definitely has put me off recommending it to people. Krita is much better, and it's also fun and non-corporate which is possibly the same spirit originally intended with GIMP but... 😬
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@Bredroll@mas.to 2026-04-24 17:53
@Craigp you do have a point, but git survived just fine
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@Kierkegaanks@beige.party 2026-04-24 17:53
@Craigp ⛄️Nobody actually cares more about the name than the ease of use
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@octothorpe@mastodon.online 2026-04-24 19:33
@Craigp@mastodon.social @tankgrrl@hachyderm.io Counternotion: GIMP still sucks and doesn’t do half of what Photoshop did or now does. Yes, it’s a dumb name. But no, it’s just not a better product.
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@wigglytuffitout@elekk.xyz 2026-04-24 17:57
@Craigp it becomes really obvious now when you compare the UI to GIMP today and also Krita, which iirc is the spinoff of GIMP-for-people-that-noticed-the-name-wasn't-great and it turns out that "people who noticed problems with the name" and "people who are willing to work to a comprehensible UI" is a venn diagram that's just a single circle. now GIMP is ruled by people who don't think users need any thought in terms of user experience, they just need to 'toughen up and get with it'. and completely expectedly, GIMP remains hell to use and actively user-unfriendly lol ...this is admittedly part of my even hotter to perhaps lukewarm to even possibly ice cold take, temperature depending entirely on audience, which is "FOSS hasn't taken off because a lot of it is perpetuated by people who like the snob appeal of 'to understand this you need to already have gotten your compsci degree, or done the equivalent work as a hobby'. it's part of the culture and that's why the year of FOSS finally becoming mainstream has now become kind of a joke: a lot of FOSS doesn't want to be mainstream and actively will fight against that, or even against any idea that there should be a sort of noblisse oblige towards people who don't have compsci degrees". ..........then the even hotter take is "FOSS as a movement is also driven by lionizing Richard Stallman, a known serial sexual harasser and abuser, and he was given basically a slap on the wrist and then allowed to come back under the radar, because he is the chosen FOSS genius (and never mind the women he harassed out of computer science altogether)". and this is absolutely connected to the failure of GIMP that flows from the name: it is a declaration that the culture is very okay with inappropriate sexual discussions and has in fact elevated them to a beloved funny joke. when the name is showing how rotten some of the foundation is, well, the name meaning something is a flop isn't... as the joke goes: it's not a bug, it's a feature. it's a feature that GIMP is supporting this culture. aaaand it's also a feature that it's failing for that reason. good riddance, imho. kill the FOSSbro to save the FOSS movement
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@letsbeworms@brain.worm.pink 2026-04-24 17:59
@Craigp@mastodon.social i would switch to FUCKBOI in a heartbeat
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@Purple@woof.tech 2026-04-24 19:33
@Craigp@mastodon.social Hate to say it but I think how unintuitive GIMP is has had more of an effect. It's a horribly difficult and frustrating piece of software to use
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@stinerman@mastodon.social 2026-04-24 17:58
@Craigp@mastodon.social it would be fun to say "oh I don't use Windows. I run FUCKBOI."
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@disorderlyf@todon.eu 2026-04-24 17:59
@Craigp@mastodon.social Funny story, I learned about GIMP before I knew what a gimp was. I'm pretty lax when it comes to what people name their shit, especially since FOSS has a long history of shitty naming conventions. I also have other reasons not to want to use the GNU Image Manipulation Program