While I don't disagree with the people wanting to change the name here, I cant help but realize that they are essentially bullying the maintainers. The maintainers are people who spend their free time to work on a project they never get paid for. Sure its a project we all seem to use, but it's also their project. I don't feel like its anyones place to force them into something they dont want to do. The thread started civil but then turned into cyber bullying. Funny how those trying to "prevent bullying" are the very ones doing it.
This is the way with any issue of public importance, which, as a capital-F Free Software project with a lengthy history and many contributors, GIMP has grown into. The software's functionality is commendable, and they have made some strides on UX as well. That makes it worth recommending, but for the parts that hold it back, of which the name is increasingly a major one.
When these issues come up, and there is a perception of gatekeeping behavior, protest is normal. The developers hold the power here. And developer arguments to avoid popular change tend to become more incoherent as the popularity of the software grows, because it positions them as both serving a popular interest(lots of users, open development) and not(private whims trumping popular ones). Developers on prominent products with many users generally are not following their fancy anymore; they are making their career. If they want to sully their career, dying on this hill is a way to do it.
They do not, this is exactly the point of free software. Anyone can fork it and release their fork under a different name. Don't want to do that work? Too bad. Want to force the developers to do it? Now which party is attempting to exercise power?
The only thing the developers are doing is refusing to modify their free gift to the community to line up with other people's non-technical priorities. This is not an exercise of power — is it simply reminding people that free software contributors are not indentured servants.
Exactly. Someone unhappy with the name, but wants to contribute to the product, can fork the project with a different name and start putting all their patches in there.
If their features are good, they might get backported to the other project. That person may continue to rebase off the original as well. Eventually you might have two packages in all the major distros and CI that helps keep both trees in sync.
That really is the right way forward here. Or ... the person could just make a CI that pulls, applies a single script that renames and rebrands everything, and then rerelease packages. That's all they have to do .. and if it catches on, well then they've made a change without having to bother the original developers at all.
Wonder how many people who are up in arms about the name actually use GIMP? And how many of those are willing to monetarily compensate them for the lost recognition in the event they do change their name and are forced to start from scratch?
It is strange that the title words it as "Gimp" when GIMP has always been "GIMP", which has a very specific meaning(it stands for GNU Image Manipulation Program) that has nothing to do with the word "gimp".
I've used GIMP since I was in middle school and I have never ever known that it was a homophone for the more offensive term. I grew up in California and also never heard anyone use this term as an insult to anyone. Do non-American/English speaking GIMP users not have a say in this? Why do they have to have their GIMP become something else just because it happens to sound like a bad word in some other language?
It'll be a huge shame if they go through with this, but even if it does, I will always refer to their work as GIMP, the GNU Image Manipulation Program.
> Wonder how many people who are up in arms about the name actually use GIMP?
I, for one, use it every day. Have you taken a look at the discussion? Your questions are pretty thoroughly addressed, which, along with your final line here, make me think you're more interested in your desire to use ableist slurs and the holy right of software maintainers to ignore any and all criticism without consequences than anything else.
Let us be clear: Nobody in this issue thread cares _at all_ about whether it was "meant" to convey the same meaning as the word "gimp". It is factually true that people find it awkward to recommend in professional settings because of its name, and sometimes the name makes adoption impossible.
Obviously nobody can force the maintainers to do anything, but we can _ask_ them to change a superficial component of their excellent software to make it much more useful, which is what this issue was.
For the vast majority of the non-English world, the acronym for a project called "C UNIX Networking Toolkit" doesn't mean anything but the project's name. That doesn't mean going around using that acronym is a good idea.
Have you considered that your example might be a really good idea? The same idea has been used as a highly effective tourism campaign: https://mashable.com/2016/11/06/cu-in-the-nt/
So, great! We've agreed that there _is_ a line, right? A line after which a word is too offensive to too many people to use as a project name; a line over which it's sensible for your users to reasonably and respectfully ask you to change the name, and expect more than a "No. Closed." in response? And your argument is, GIMP doesn't go over that line?
Well yes, for me in California and much of the non-English speaking world, before this "issue" was brought up had no idea what "gimp" was. If anything, the pro-change side has done nothing except raise the awareness of the offensive term and we will likely see an increase in attacks using that term due to it.
I can't imagine changing the innocent name of my project because it happened to be a homophone of a mean word in some other language.
Except, you said you CAN imagine that. I just gave you an example of EXACTLY that and you agreed that it was too far. So, clearly, you have some kind of double standard here.
You're arguing in bad faith and it's making you look silly. Stop it.
Please don't cross into flamewar like this, regardless of how wrong or annoying other comments are. I realize that it's hard when you're arguing against a whole bunch of people—it can feel like you're surrounded by a mob. But situations like that make it more important, not less, to follow the site guidelines.
I most certainly am not arguing in bad faith. The last sentence is an utterance of my own personal feeling about things. But objectively I could see why the name of the other project you mentioned would be an issue. Regrettably, that term is a lot more well known and widely used and I accept why they would change it. I did not say I agreed with it and I especially do not here with GIMP. I am not able to morally justify forcing them to change their project name, since I really do not think of GIMP as anything other than the image editing program I've always used, like the vast majority of the world. I'm sorry that you and various regions of the U.S. are inflicted with such a slur to begin with.
Sure, but you want them to do it right and are willing to fight for it right? If they end up having to do it due to those pressures, that is very much having their hand forced.
Do you also take offense on the word GNOME? which the dictionary defines as "a small ugly person".
How about DALCOP? Which means a particularly stupid person.
Apple
(North America) an American Indian (Native American) who is "red on the outside, white on the inside". Used primarily by other American Indians to indicate someone who has lost touch with their cultural identity. First used in the 1970s.
No, the dictionary defines a gnome as "a legendary dwarfish creature supposed to guard the earth's treasures underground". You're using a variant definition. Gnomes as commonly understood are mythical (i.e. not real) creatures. I've never heard anyone be offended by "GNOME". You can't just make up offensiveness where none actually exists.
Contrast with the word "midget", which does refer to real people and is offensive, and would be a bad name for a software project. Same for "gimp".
I am not a native English speaker. I know the insulting meaning of "cunt" but not "gimp". I think this is the case for most people around me. That's the difference. You are trying to mix two different levels. I am not defending "GIMP is a fine name" since my English is not good enough. My reply just provides an evidence that your example might not be very appropriate here.
Totally! I agree that they're on different levels of international recognition. My point here is that siphon refuses to agree that they're even the same _kind_ of thing, which makes me think they're not interested in actually reaching a good compromise, for some reason, but just want to be right.
I couldn't even remember the offensive definition when I read the title. I only associate the name with the program. Language can mean whatever we want it to, and by admission that it's offensive, you make it offensive. Should a definition change in the future that makes "hacker" a negative word, should this social platform change their name? Or could we simply say that it has a different definition to us? Is changing the name of a product really just superficial, if the name is the primary way people recognize it is safe to use?
without naming names I see a lot of SJW in that issue without very many commits/participation in the open source community.
Also the maintainers gave their reply as it is their prerogative to do so.
> Michael Natterer @mitch · 5 hours ago Maintainer
> Sorry, the name will not change, closing.
Michael Natterer @mitch closed 5 hours ago
So JordiGH, you needn't re-open the issue https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gimp/issues/3618 and post to HN with the hopes of generating outrage against the GIMP project for not doing what you want.
As someone who likes to think that I do have as many "commits/participation" as many others, I would appreciate it if people would focus on the core argument:
It is hard to get people to use this software, who would otherwise benefit, because of their perception of the name, and it's easier to change the name once than change those perceptions every single time.
If you have problems with THAT, I'd love to discuss them, but please leave "SJWism" and whatever out of it - that's not really what's at issue here.
> As someone who likes to think that I do have as many "commits/participation" as many others, I would appreciate it if people would focus on the core argument
The reason this is important is because in recent times essentially nobodies like to pop out of the woodwork with "ideas" like this. They then like to "shame" people who don't agree with them. There's nothing wrong with expecting people to build up a reputation before suggesting divisive and controversial ideas.
> The fact that this one was seen indicates that there is an issue here.
That would have been because it was showing up under /newest. There was probably a small amount of upvotes coming from the link back from the gitlab issue.
> I didn't create the issue. I am only drawing attention to it. If the issue weren't a problem, it wouldn't even be possible to draw attention to it.
No, you opened the duplicate issue after the first one was closed (not locked) by the maintainer.
I didn't link to my duplicate issue and you're really fixated on that particular line of attack. I linked to the original issue, both here and on Lobsters. The duplicate issue was quickly locked and forgotten.
I meant "I didn't create the issue" in the sense that it's not my fault that people want to change Gimp's name, not "issue" as in "id number in Gitlab". You can thwart this particular barbarian at the gate and feel content that if you attack me the question of Gimp's name is settled, until the next barbarian comes along, but there's a lot of barbarians and you'll probably be fighting this war for many years to come as long as you and other Gimp developers decide to dig in their heels and die on this hill.
So now that the original issue has been deleted, not even locked, you agree it's reasonable to open it again? Where else can this discussion continue?
Except for this? By all means consider renaming it.
Or keep it to spite everyone who comes from the outside and tries to destroy hacker culture.
Because that's what people are doing, destroying hacker culture just like we destroyed other cultures before.
Yes, in some cases the new culture is better, but why oh why do we have to destroy everything funny or unusual in the process.
This comes from someone who sometimes has to stand up for his group in other settings. Why can't society let us - and the hacker culture - alone as long as we adhere to the laws?
If the GIMP won't be a commercial success - fine. Or someone can fork it and package it under another name - fine. Or the maintainers can sell out - or even agree - fine.
But can't we stop this war against all forms of old school fun and what should I say - diversity?
You claim to want to stop what you see as a war against fun and diversity, after insisting that anyone who doesn't share the same juvenile sense of humor as you, or who disagrees with the name of a software project, must be an outsider trying to destroy hacker culture?
So do you want diversity or conformity, then? Stop with the gatekeeping BS, please. You don't get to say what hacker culture is or who belongs in it.
> Stop with the gatekeeping BS, please. You don't get to say what hacker culture is or who belongs in it.
I'm not gatekeeping here, only suggesting that people behave nicely in other peoples houses so to speak.
From the link I pasted it is quite clear what the GIMP maintainers used to think about this. If they reconsider I'm fine with that as well, I'm not attached to the name. But I am fed up with people coming to invade others cultures for the sake of making them acceptable to a certain subset of what seems to be extremely privileged people.
There is a huge difference between asking to be left alone amd demanding others conform to something. If they don't like the name they don't have to use the software. Or as GP mentioned they can fork it to rename it whatever they'd like. Times like this I'm reminded of the adage 'Offense is taken not given.'
> destroying over 20 years of work to make their name.
Oh right. I forgot filing an issue presenting a calm and reasoned argument for changing one string of text to another was the same as "destroying" a project.
Snark is not acceptable on HN. And yes, making an established project change their name is destroying everything they had done for it under that name. They will have to start over from scratch and it will take years to reach the same level of name recognition.
I didn't check the timestamps of all your comments so maybe it isn't your last comment. I'll let others here read through your comments (as I definitely did) and see if you made a snarky comment before lecturing others on snark. It might not be fair: snark is in the eye of the beholder, right? Oops, now I'm being snarky.
As someone who participated in this issue, I want to let you know that we chose to engage the current maintainers before forking because that's the nice, respectful thing to do. I, personally, find it extremely aggravating when people fork projects over minor decisions like this. It leads to a huge amount of wasted effort on both sides.
As it is, we're likely to either fork the project (which is underway at the moment), or build a GIMP keybinding compatibility layer for Krita; the second is less preferable because it would require quite a lot of hacking to make the more advanced features work, and would almost certainly not reach 100% parity.
As you note, either one will be a good deal of effort; another reason we wanted to at least ask the maintainers if they would be willing to accept a patch with the name change, instead.
Now what was your point, other than to insult some people whose argument you almost certainly didn't read?
I actually did read the thread thank you very much. My point is people want to bitch about a trivial thing (yes it is my opinion that this is a trivial matter.) How much effort and time are you willing to spend on such a minor thing as a 4 character string? I predict someone will fork it, and in a year's time it'll be abandoned and not kept up to date because they'll simply move onto the next trivial matter which offends you folks.
Frankly, few will use your fork anyway because it provides zero value vs the established name/brand.
So, you read the issue. What is it you fail to grasp about the conversation "I think, rather than buying Photoshop, you should use this software." "We can't use software with a name like that."
That's a conversation I've had, in real life, with a professor and a professional photographer.
Literally, the only thing holding them back was the name.
Let's be real here. You can't even make a circle in GIMP without jumping through various hoops. Right now, the hurdle for those professionals is just the name, but wait until you see when they actually try using the tools. They'll happily pay for Photoshop once they realize that what they wanted after all was just a free Photoshop. This is quite a different angle I am arguing from, but it's my pragmatic side. I believe GIMP should maintain it's current userbase that was earned through over 20 years of hard work under their current name, instead of chasing customers that will unlikely appreciate their project anyway.
This. I’ve used Photoshop since v4. Every time I try to use the latest version of GIMP I run away and happily pay for Photoshop because I choose not spend time to learn how to use GIMP (or Pixelmator on Mac.)
"I don’t like the name GIMP. Will you change it?
With all due respect, no.
We’ve been using the name GIMP for more than 20 years and it’s widely known.
The name was originally (and remains) an acronym; although the word “gimp” can be used offensively in some cultures, that is not our intent.
On top of that, we feel that in the long run, sterilization of language will do more harm than good. GIMP has been quite popular for a long time in search engine results compared to the use of the word “gimp”. So we think we are on the right track to make a positive change and make “gimp” something people actually feel good about. Especially if we add all the features we’ve been meaning to implement and fix the user interface.
Finally, if you still have strong feelings about the name “GIMP”, you should feel free to promote the use of the long form GNU Image Manipulation Program or maintain your own releases of the software under a different name."
So instead of using the name "GIMP" with your easily-offended professor and photographer, use the name "GNU Image Manipulation Program" and move on with your life. Or let them spend their hard earned cash propping up Adobe's stock price. In the end, the developers of GIMP, built it for themselves. If others don't like the app for whatever reason, name included - there are plenty of other alternatives.
Seriously. Even a super generic name like "GPaint" would be a huge improvement. Some parts of the Free Software world are run by programmers and programmers only and it shows. It would benefit to listen to a marketing person every once in awhile.
To be fair, it's open source software that makes the maintainers of it $0 of profit. Its closer to a form of art than it is a product. It might just be they don't actually care to gain adoption or "win the market".
As someone who's written and released his own Free Software, I have to say, I at least definitely cared about getting users. Most of the fun is in your product actually being used, not just it being out there. I never did anything remotely as important as Gimp, but if someone had come along and offered some simple services like "Let me design a cool logo for your project" I'd have jumped at the chance. I can't imagine Gimp hasn't had similar opportunities.
> The name is horrible in every sense that matters to gaining adoption.
Being memorable and differentiating yourself is important to gaining adoption, The GIMP achieves this better than something generic like *paint. A rename may have it's merits, but it won't be automatically better.
There is no grace in sullying innocent people selflessly building a fine free product, while asking nothing in return. The mental gymnastics and energy employed in attributing malice is much better spent in improving the product.
Better yet, fork the product, rename it and do with it as you please. The authors are generous enough to allow that.
I'm not a very sensitive or "PC" person but the name has always bothered me, so much so that I won't use it or recommend it anyone only because of the name.
>> "I've never heard that word used for anything else than the software."
There are a lot of words I didn't know were common slurs, or at least inaccurate or otherwise not okay until someone told me. For example: Eskimo (colonist nonsense), Gypsy (name given to Romani people based on mistaken belief they came from Egypt), Indian (some native people use it, but not all).
>The most modern and often used version of the word "gimp" is an ableist insult.
Untrue. The most common usage is as an adjective/verb that has nothing to do with disabled people. "Switching from C to Java really gimped our performance." "Our marketing in Mexico is gimped because we didn't hire a native Spanish speaker."
Also this is pretty rich coming from GNOME, considering that's used as an insulting name for little person.
It's used that way in Australia, the only time in my life I've heard gimp used in a derogatory way was in pulp fiction.
But this illustrates a big problem with all these PC crusades lately, they're trying to apply US (at least parts of the US) cultural norms to international projects, often at the expense of alienating most of the world.
I've heard it used by British friends as an insult that means "idiot" but I've never heard a disabled person called a gimp. Frankly I wasn't aware that was a usage until I looked it up to check. It's certainly not used that way in the US, at least in my region.
It's not a "crusade" in any sense. It's one issue on a GitLab that someone decided to link over here (not one of the people who made the issue, I think). It is about "political correctness" only in that it's genuinely hard to get some people to even consider using this free software because, and ONLY because, of its name.
I think you should rethink your idea of a crusade if you think this is what that word means.
This is hardly an isolated event, it's not just a single issue on a single project.
> It is about "political correctness" only in that it's genuinely hard to get some people to even consider using this free software because, and ONLY because, of its name.
People that vain will find something else to dislike about it.
Where did I say anything about a conspiracy or someone trying to destroy open source?
The crusade is to shame people into not using language that a minority of the world deems inappropriate, it's not confined to open source. It's definitely not a conspiracy, the people that push things like this onto other people are obnoxiously open and loud about it.
The word originated as a slur for people with disabilities. That is its origin and still the first definition in the dictionary (for slang usage). You're trying to argue that a word is not defined the way the dictionary defines it.
Dictionaries aren't perfect, but they're more widely agreed-on and useful than your anecdata.
> they're trying to apply US (at least parts of the US) cultural norms to international projects
Out of 379M native English speakers[1], 234M[2] live in the US. That's about 61%. If our English-language norms are widespread, they're also likely used by a majority of native English speakers.
(That's also not including Canada, which shares many of our language norms.)
> alienating most of the world
How does changing the name of Gimp "alienate" anyone? Whose feelings would be hurt and why? Who would stop using the product out of rage?
I'm not arguing that the etymological origin of the word isn't offensive, just that most of it's current usage (in my experience) isn't. If anything having such a great and popular app associated with the word will further diminish it's derogatory use.
> Out of 379M native English speakers[1], 234M[2] live in the US. That's about 61%. If our English-language norms are widespread, they're also likely used by a majority of native English speakers.
The replies here indicate that it's not universally used in it's derogatory meaning within the US either. Not that it matters, I was talking about applying the cultural norms to the rest of the world, the culture being the PC professional standards of white collar workers in large cities. The more that get's forced into OSS, of which this is just one example of a trend, and most of the world and anyone that want's more inclusivity should be fighting against this sort of rubbish.
This is mentioned in the FAQ and it's exceedingly clear and reasonable:
> Finally, if you still have strong feelings about the name “GIMP”, you should feel free to promote the use of the long form GNU Image Manipulation Program or maintain your own releases of the software under a different name.
Maybe someone should do that, then. I'd be onboard with it. Then I could reference it by a better name and feel more OK with recommending it.
The problem is, how many large Linux distros will accept a new package into their package managers that is essentially the exact same thing as an existing package, just with a different name and logo assets? For this to be truly successful, it has to be as easy as `apt-get install gpaint` (insert better name here).
I'm not completely familiar but I get the sense that building a snap package isn't that much of a hurdle if there's such a big need for a renamed fork.
I haven't had great experiences with Snap packages, to be honest. And the fact that they use their own sandboxed filesystem is really inconvenient for an image editing app.
I probably won't be installing any more Snap packages.
Ok...then flatpak or appimage...there's a clear omnipresent issue here where people argue over petty issues that fragment and polarize the software ecosystem and it's only worse that resources are heavily constrained and voluntary. I don't mean this to discount your concern, but you're making a strong ask from a community that's based completely on loosely-coordinated voluntary efforts. If you want change - advocacy is not enough and frankly counterproductive. Start solving your problem and paying it forward to the people that you think will benefit.
Please don't, even when something seems wrong or annoying.
Would you mind reviewing the site guidelines and sticking to them? Their intention is to try to keep this place from degrading so that it can remain interesting for all of us.
