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Why not allow the name to be configurable?

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Why not allow the name to be configurable? [was [Bug 160890] Change Gimp name (fwd)] Alan Horkan 12 Dec 16:45
  Why not allow the name to be configurable? [was [Bug 160890] Change Gimp name (fwd)] Adam D. Moss 12 Dec 17:01
  Why not allow the name to be configurable? [was [Bug 160890] Change Gimp name (fwd)] David Gómez 12 Dec 17:19
   Why not allow the name to be configurable? [was [Bug 160890] Change Gimp name (fwd)] GSR - FR 12 Dec 21:38
   Why not allow the name to be configurable? [was [Bug 160890] Change Gimp name (fwd)] Alan Horkan 13 Dec 19:11
    Why not allow the name to be configurable? Sven Neumann 13 Dec 21:26
     Why not allow the name to be configurable? Alan Horkan 14 Dec 15:52
    Why not allow the name to be configurable? [was [Bug 160890] Change Gimp name (fwd)] Carol Spears 13 Dec 21:28
  Why not allow the name to be configurable? [was [Bug 160890] Change Gimp name (fwd)] Carol Spears 12 Dec 17:51
   Why not allow the name to be configurable? [was [Bug 160890] Change Gimp name (fwd)] Alan Horkan 13 Dec 20:15
  Why not allow the name to be configurable? Sven Neumann 12 Dec 18:05
   Why not allow the name to be configurable? Robert L Krawitz 12 Dec 23:00
    Why not allow the name to be configurable? Alan Horkan 13 Dec 16:29
   Why not allow the name to be configurable? Michael J. Hammel 13 Dec 00:38
    [semi-OT] Re: Why not allow the name to be configurable? Adam D. Moss 13 Dec 00:50
    Why not allow the name to be configurable? Sven Neumann 13 Dec 01:23
     Why not allow the name to be configurable? Alan Horkan 13 Dec 20:49
   Why not allow the name to be configurable? Alan Horkan 13 Dec 14:38
Alan Horkan
2004-12-12 16:45:53 UTC (over 19 years ago)

Why not allow the name to be configurable? [was [Bug 160890] Change Gimp name (fwd)]

Some people have difficulty dealing with the connotations of the term "The GIMP". I wont go into details again about why some people have issues with the name, some even finding it offensive.

bug 168090 suggests a name change (and it seems to be the first time anyone has wanted this enough to file a bug report about it)

I don't think it is a good idea to change the project name. (CC'ing the gimp-user list as the issue was recently brought up there already.) It is a good sign that the gimp has improved so much that people are only left with the name to complain about :)

I think it would be a fair compromise to accept patches that make it easier for those who would like to configure the name.

Sven wrote: "Bugzilla is the wrong place for such a discussion. If you really want to have it, please bring it up on the mailing-list."

Sven also wrote: I am certainly not willing to accept patches that allow to configure the name

I have to ask why reject such patches?

You are in the lead developer in charge and can do anything you want and I certainly wouldn't expect you to make the changes but I'd feel a lot better if you gave a good reason to reject patches that would make it easier to get more people to use Free Software?

If a project as big as Mozilla Firefox allows it name to be changed, why would it be an issue for the gimp?
Why require people to fork or maintain their own patchsets for the sake of a little extra configurability.

Sincerely

Alan Horkan

Adam D. Moss
2004-12-12 17:01:01 UTC (over 19 years ago)

Why not allow the name to be configurable? [was [Bug 160890] Change Gimp name (fwd)]

Alan Horkan wrote:

Some people have difficulty dealing with the connotations of the term "The GIMP". I wont go into details again about why some people have issues with the name, some even finding it offensive.

I still find it baffling that people would get upset about something so lighthearted and harmless, but the idea of making the name configurable in the interests of a quiet life vaguely appeals if it can be done non-intrusively.

Has anyone thought of (ab)using the i18n system for this? If all occurances of 'GIMP' can be tagged, someone can easily derive a en_US.TriviallyOffended translation from en_US...

--Adam

David Gómez
2004-12-12 17:19:26 UTC (over 19 years ago)

Why not allow the name to be configurable? [was [Bug 160890] Change Gimp name (fwd)]

Hi Alan,

I don't think it is a good idea to change the project name.

So you kind of answered to yourself...

It is a good sign that the gimp has improved so much that people are only left with the name to complain about :)

I don't complain about the name.

I think it would be a fair compromise to accept patches that make it easier for those who would like to configure the name.

That a non-sense claim. I think that people that get offended by a name have deeper problems. And they should worry first about them instead of changing everybody's minds to their way of thinking.

I answer to you, because i work on a window manager with a name that could be considered offensive by spanish-speakers with similar ideas to the users who claim that gimp should change its name. But we didn't intend to offense anyone when we choosed the name, it was just a joke. People who complained about the name understood this when we explained it to them.

If a project as big as Mozilla Firefox allows it name to be changed, why would it be an issue for the gimp?

There was another project called Firebird, so there was a good reason to change it.

Why require people to fork or maintain their own patchsets for the sake of a little extra configurability.

I wouldn't call it configurability.

Regards,

Carol Spears
2004-12-12 17:51:34 UTC (over 19 years ago)

Why not allow the name to be configurable? [was [Bug 160890] Change Gimp name (fwd)]

i have a question for you; you don't need to answer it to anyone but yourself. what does the word gimp mean to you and where ever could you have come up with this meaning?

when i hear the word gimp, i get a chuckle from a media image that some pack of film geniuses inbedded into our collective language lately. also, i did not see this movie when it first came out because there was "too much hype". had it not been for the hype, this movie would have only been seen by a handful of similar film geeks (not gimp -- geek) and you might never had associated that word with that image.

i was a girl scout when i was a kid. this means a lot of different things, one of the things that was necessary to do when you were affiliated with this organization when i was growing up was you were required to tie this sort of knot:
http://www.angelfire.com/ca7/sierratses/images/lanyard.jpg with this sort of cord:
http://www.boondoggleman.com/what_is_it.htm

so i am going to suggest that the only name we consider to change "TheGIMP" to is "Boondoggle".

children know what they can tell their grandparents better than their parents, i think. adults get plagued with "interesting media images" much more than children do, especially when both see the same image. to say that "TheGIMP" is an inappropriate name is to bring human beings all down to this level that is unnecessary.

i am becoming confusing again. i am sorry. let me try to sum it up this way: what gives you the right to inflict your perversions on a group of developers like that? if you have a problem with the name, perhaps you should fix yourself. that was a well done movie, over hyped but well done and extremely funny. do you *know* anyone like any character in it?

what i would like for you to do is to get some gimp, tie up a lanyard and think about all of this. what is it that you think of when you read the characters "TheGIMP"?

leave bugzilla for software problems.

carol

Sven Neumann
2004-12-12 18:05:46 UTC (over 19 years ago)

Why not allow the name to be configurable?

Hi,

Alan Horkan writes:

I have to ask why reject such patches?

Because IMO the name is important. If we allow the name to be changed easily, our users will not any longer know what software they are using. Contributors will be lost because they will look for the "Foo" project instead of the GIMP project. It would also make it way too easy for anyone who wants to make some quick money out of The GIMP. We must not allow people to change the name by means of a simple configure option and let them benefit from our hard work.

You are in the lead developer in charge and can do anything you want and I certainly wouldn't expect you to make the changes but I'd feel a lot better if you gave a good reason to reject patches that would make it easier to get more people to use Free Software?

I seriously doubt that the name is effectively keeping GIMP from being used. And I am all happy to ignore the very few people who are so narrow-minded as to having a problem with the name.

If a project as big as Mozilla Firefox allows it name to be changed, why would it be an issue for the gimp?

For Firefox having the name configurable is part of the business plan. I can't find any such note in the GIMP's business plan. Heck, I can't even find the plan.

Why require people to fork or maintain their own patchsets for the sake of a little extra configurability.

So that it becomes harder for them to do this. And if they really think it's worth all the hassle, well, then they can do it.

Sven

GSR - FR
2004-12-12 21:38:41 UTC (over 19 years ago)

Why not allow the name to be configurable? [was [Bug 160890] Change Gimp name (fwd)]

david@pleyades.net (2004-12-12 at 1719.26 +0100):

If a project as big as Mozilla Firefox allows it name to be changed, why would it be an issue for the gimp?

There was another project called Firebird, so there was a good reason to change it.

I think Firefox option was from one point of view, a joke, and from another, a way to cover their ass, just in case they had to do it again (Phoenix, Firebird, Firefox... what next? ;] ).

GSR

Robert L Krawitz
2004-12-12 23:00:24 UTC (over 19 years ago)

Why not allow the name to be configurable?

From: Sven Neumann
Date: Sun, 12 Dec 2004 18:05:46 +0100

Alan Horkan writes:

> I have to ask why reject such patches?

Because IMO the name is important. If we allow the name to be changed easily, our users will not any longer know what software they are using. Contributors will be lost because they will look for the "Foo" project instead of the GIMP project. It would also make it way too easy for anyone who wants to make some quick money out of The GIMP. We must not allow people to change the name by means of a simple configure option and let them benefit from our hard work.

Changing the source code and documentation is the easiest part of it. The hard part is changing the web site, references all over the net, etc. I speak here from ongoing experience -- the Gimp-Print project is in the process of renaming to Gutenprint. Changing the source took Roger Leigh perhaps a week or so, but the web site, hosting, etc. are still moving along very slowly, and we have a lot of work to do. This is probably the primary reason that 5.0 wasn't released perhaps a month ago.

> If a project as big as Mozilla Firefox allows it name to be > changed, why would it be an issue for the gimp?

For Firefox having the name configurable is part of the business plan. I can't find any such note in the GIMP's business plan. Heck, I can't even find the plan.

Firefox had a little legal problem on their hands, and didn't have much choice.

Michael J. Hammel
2004-12-13 00:38:11 UTC (over 19 years ago)

Why not allow the name to be configurable?

On Sun, 2004-12-12 at 11:05, Sven Neumann wrote:

I seriously doubt that the name is effectively keeping GIMP from being used. And I am all happy to ignore the very few people who are so narrow-minded as to having a problem with the name.

While I agree with most of what you've said in response to this thread, Sven, I take a bit of exception with this. Being one of the few open minded liberals stuck in Texas, I tend to be a little sensitive to being called narrow minded.

The GIMP *is* a silly name and I've always had a problem with it. In the US (perhaps elsewhere) "gimp" implies "hobbled" or "broken": "His gimp leg kept him from running the race" or "Her gimp hand prevented her from reaching the jar on the top shelf". See this definition: http://www.cogsci.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/webwn?stage=1&word=gimp It doesn't have to imply a guy strapped in leather just because of a movie. The word itself is inappropriate for software if you're trying to feed it to the unwashed masses. I said this when GIMP was chosen as a name back when it moved from Motif to GTK (though I'd be hard pressed to find the mailing list entry that proves this). But no one listened, or at least they didn't agree, then. And that's okay. It really isn't that big a deal. It probably isn't keeping that many people from using it. But it is a silly name. And I have wished for years that it would be changed to something more inviting.

That said, I don't see any reason to change it. It would be like asking Moon Unit Zappa to change her name. Its a silly name. But it's hers. And she's apparently satisfied to keep it. So let it be. Not to mention (though I see Robert Krawitz just did) that there are very practical reasons not to change it - it would be an awful lot of work for very little gain.

BTW, I couldn't even find the bug in question. Maybe someone already closed it.

Adam D. Moss
2004-12-13 00:50:35 UTC (over 19 years ago)

[semi-OT] Re: Why not allow the name to be configurable?

> The word itself is inappropriate for software if you're trying

to feed it to the unwashed masses. I said this when GIMP was chosen as a name back when it moved from Motif to GTK

A correction...
GIMP was called GIMP long before the move from Motif to GTK. The first public release (0.53 IIRC) was called GIMP. It's always been GIMP. The only naming change that happened during the time of which you speak is that the 'G' started to stand for 'GNU' instead of 'General'.

--Adam

Sven Neumann
2004-12-13 01:23:47 UTC (over 19 years ago)

Why not allow the name to be configurable?

Hi,

"Michael J. Hammel" writes:

On Sun, 2004-12-12 at 11:05, Sven Neumann wrote:

I seriously doubt that the name is effectively keeping GIMP from being used. And I am all happy to ignore the very few people who are so narrow-minded as to having a problem with the name.

While I agree with most of what you've said in response to this thread, Sven, I take a bit of exception with this. Being one of the few open minded liberals stuck in Texas, I tend to be a little sensitive to being called narrow minded.

My apologies. I shouldn't have generalized here. As you pointed out there's a difference between having a problem with the name and refusing to accept the software because of the name and despite better knowledge.

So what I suggest we do is to keep the name, but perhaps we can indeed do something about the way it is perceived. It could help to use the full name more. Not saying that we should avoid using the acronym but perhaps it would be good if we could try to mention the full name in release announcements and such at least once. If someone wants to review the README, NEWS. INSTALL files as well as the man-pages for this, that would be appreciated.

Sven

Alan Horkan
2004-12-13 14:38:36 UTC (over 19 years ago)

Why not allow the name to be configurable?

Date: Sun, 12 Dec 2004 18:05:46 +0100 From: Sven Neumann
To: Alan Horkan
Cc: gimp-users@lists.xcf.berkeley.edu, gimp-developer@lists.xcf.berkeley.edu Subject: Re: [Gimp-developer] Why not allow the name to be configurable?

Hi,

Alan Horkan writes:

I have to ask why reject such patches?

Because IMO the name is important. If we allow the name to be changed easily, our users will not any longer know what software they are using.

Contributors will be lost because they will look for the "Foo" project instead of the GIMP project.

(Sven I know you understand what I'm saying but other do not seem to get exactly what I'm asking) To make myself as clear as I possibly can I'm not asking for the project to change its name but to accept patches that allow others to rebrand the gimp if they want.

It would also make it way too easy for anyone who wants to make some quick money out of The GIMP.

This has happened already, people already package and sell the gimp and their failure to provide adequate support has hurt the gimp brand. If it was easier for them to rebrand it would be reasonable to expect them to do so and make it clear that their product is not officially endorsed by the gimp project.

(I'm referring to this widely reported incident of a Mac user who paid for the gimp and got no service from the vendors and as a result was excessively critical. http://www.wpdfd.com/editorial/wpd0504review.htm )

We must not allow people to change the name by means of a simple configure option and let them benefit from our hard work.

First of all thank you for providing a clear explanation. If the issue comes up again users wont be left in any doubt of how things stand and I can direct them to your comments. I will add this to the wiki, as I think it has been asked enough to be considered a Frequently Asked Question.

Free Software already allows them to do exactly the kinds of changes you would rather not allow people to make. Despite the fact that it it might happen anyway I can understand that you dont want to make it easy.

You are in the lead developer in charge and can do anything you want and I certainly wouldn't expect you to make the changes but I'd feel a lot better if you gave a good reason to reject patches that would make it easier to get more people to use Free Software?

I seriously doubt that the name is effectively keeping GIMP from being used. I am all happy to ignore the very few people who are so narrow-minded as to having a problem with the name.

I'd rather see more people use Free Software.

I'm disappointed that people here do not seem to understand or accept that some people (and it seems only to be a small minority of native English speakers in particular) have issue with the name and that their concersns are being dismissed as as some sort of narrow minded political correctness. I dont believe the complaints will go away but as you are happy to ignore the complaints I'll accept that and when I've responded to the messages in this thread I will try not to bring the issue up again.

If a project as big as Mozilla Firefox allows it name to be changed,

why would it be an issue for the gimp?

For Firefox having the name configurable is part of the business plan. I can't find any such note in the GIMP's business plan. Heck, I can't even find the plan.

I think it is a shame there is not a clear plan for the gimp and I think it would be a very good thing if there was a plan and efforts made to commericalise the gimp to allow developers like yourself (or others) to get better rewarded for the work you do improving the gimp.

Why require people to fork or maintain their own patchsets for the sake of a little extra configurability.

So that it becomes harder for them to do this. And if they really think it's worth all the hassle, well, then they can do it.

I suppose it is reasonable to draw the line somewhere.

Thanks again for making a clear decision and explaining it.

Sincerely

Alan Horkan. http://advogato.org/person/AlanHorkan/

Alan Horkan
2004-12-13 16:29:15 UTC (over 19 years ago)

Why not allow the name to be configurable?

On Sun, 12 Dec 2004, Robert L Krawitz wrote:

Date: Sun, 12 Dec 2004 17:00:24 -0500 From: Robert L Krawitz
To: sven@gimp.org
Cc: horkana@maths.tcd.ie, gimp-users@lists.xcf.berkeley.edu, gimp-developer@lists.xcf.berkeley.edu Subject: Re: [Gimp-developer] Why not allow the name to be configurable?

From: Sven Neumann Date: Sun, 12 Dec 2004 18:05:46 +0100

Alan Horkan writes:

I have to ask why reject such patches?

Because IMO the name is important. If we allow the name to be changed easily,

It would also make it way too easy for anyone who wants to make some quick money out of The GIMP. We must not allow people to change the name by means of a simple configure option and let them benefit from our hard work.

Changing the source code and documentation is the easiest part of it. The hard part is changing the web site, references all over the net, etc. I speak here from ongoing experience -- the Gimp-Print project is in the process of renaming to Gutenprint.

I am not asking the GNU Image Manipulation Program to change name.

I was asking why patches that might make it possible/easier for others to change the project name and branding would be rejected.

I am aware of some the difficulties that would occur if the GIMP were to change name tomorrow which is why I want to make it clear that wasn't what I was asking. It is also extremely unlikel for a name change to ever happen which is why I was asking a subtley different question.

I have accepted Svens answers on this matter and do not intend to push it further. I dont find the name amusing or clever but it does not get in the way of my image editing.

Changing the source took Roger Leigh perhaps a week or so, but the web site, hosting, etc. are still moving along very slowly, and we have a lot of work to do.

While going through this process did Roger Leigh replace the name or did he abstract the name so that if some one was ever forced to change it again it could be done more easily? (the latter would of course take much more time)

This is probably the primary reason that 5.0 wasn't released perhaps a month ago.

I'm surprised the rebranding was not done seperately from the release, but that is probably only something that is obvious in hindsight.

I would guess you changed the name of gimp-print to guten-print first and foremost because the project is seperate from the gimp but presumably you were aware that a small minority find the term "gimp" somewhat inappropriate and that it might be easier to market a different name.

I wish Guten-Print the best of success with the new name and I encourage you to make as much publicity out of it as you can. (Still haven't seen any stories on it yet, just mailing list posts but I suppose I'll hear a lot more about it when 5.0 is released.)

If a project as big as Mozilla Firefox allows it name to be

> changed, why would it be an issue for the gimp?

For Firefox having the name configurable is part of the business plan. I can't find any such note in the GIMP's business plan. Heck, I can't even find the plan.

Firefox had a little legal problem on their hands, and didn't have much choice.

Firefox started off as a fork of Mozilla, was codenamed mb2, then Pheonix then Firebird. I really doubt the clean abstraction of the name had anything to do with the legalities but as Sven suggested much more do to with the business plans of Netscape and the Mozilla foundation to allow rebranded versions of their browser. "Better a hundred branches than one fork".

The project name could be have been changed crudely using grep and other tools or by messing around with the translations (something I may still look into) but it is another matter entirely to improve the abstraction of the code and make it so that the name is configurable and need only be changed in a few key places.

The Mozilla foundation does want to encourage commercialisation of their product and the GIMP doesn't, fair enough.

Sincerely

Alan Horkan

Alan Horkan
2004-12-13 19:11:39 UTC (over 19 years ago)

Why not allow the name to be configurable? [was [Bug 160890] Change Gimp name (fwd)]

On Sun, 12 Dec 2004, David [iso-8859-15] Gómez wrote:

Date: Sun, 12 Dec 2004 17:19:26 +0100 From: "David [iso-8859-15] Gómez"
To: Alan Horkan
Cc: gimp-developer@lists.xcf.berkeley.edu, gimp-users@lists.xcf.berkeley.edu Subject: Re: [Gimp-developer] Why not allow the name to be configurable? [was [Bug 160890] Change Gimp name (fwd)]

Hi Alan,

I don't think it is a good idea to change the project name.

So you kind of answered to yourself...

No that is the answer to quite a different question.

I asked why not accept patches that make it easier to change the name.

It is a good sign that the gimp has improved so much that people are only left with the name to complain about :)

I don't complain about the name.

I never claimed you did.

I think it would be a fair compromise to accept patches that make it easier for those who would like to configure the name.

That a non-sense claim. I think that people that get offended by a name have deeper problems.

You can say it is trivial or silly but you cannot deny that it happens to bother a small minority of people.

I do not know if you are a native English speaker but the term gimp is has a very similar meaning to "cripple". If you look at the bug report I point to some comments where people other than me say they have encountered difficulties, notably the embarassment of explaining the name really was the gimp to a person in a wheelchair and that the user was not mocking them.

And they should worry first about them instead of changing everybody's minds to their way of thinking.

I say again that I was not asking to change what everbody else calls the GNU Image Manipulation Program but I was asking why it would not be acceptable to make it easier for other to change the name (and Sven has explained the reasons for it).

I answer to you, because i work on a window manager with a name that could be considered offensive by spanish-speakers with similar

What is the name?

ideas to the users who claim that gimp should change its name. But we didn't intend to offense anyone when we choosed the name, it was just a joke.

I'm not a big fan of "funny" project names because different people find completely different things funny, and I much prefer names that give some idea of what a project does (which the long form GNU Image Manipulation Program does serve that purpose).

But this is all beside the point, I'm not trying to force the majority to change their ways but I wanted to make it easier for the small minority to help themselves.

People who complained about the name understood this when we explained it to them.

If a project as big as Mozilla Firefox allows it name to be changed, why would it be an issue for the gimp?

There was another project called Firebird, so there was a good reason to change it.

As Sven explained and I pointed out in other posts the fact that Mozilla and Firefox can be so easily rebranded has far more to do with Netscape than it does any legal issues.

Why require people to fork or maintain their own patchsets for the sake of a little extra configurability.

I wouldn't call it configurability.

What would you call it then?

- Alan

Alan Horkan
2004-12-13 20:15:14 UTC (over 19 years ago)

Why not allow the name to be configurable? [was [Bug 160890] Change Gimp name (fwd)]

On Sun, 12 Dec 2004, Carol Spears wrote:

Date: Sun, 12 Dec 2004 08:51:34 -0800 From: Carol Spears
To: Alan Horkan ,
GIMPDev
Subject: Re: [Gimp-developer] Why not allow the name to be configurable? [was [Bug 160890] Change Gimp name (fwd)]

i have a question for you; you don't need to answer it to anyone but yourself. what does the word gimp mean to you and where ever could you have come up with this meaning?

One of the meanings I associate with the the word gimp is lame or crippled (it is a dictionary definition of the term). http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=gimp

the other you have already mentioned

when i hear the word gimp, i get a chuckle from a media image that some pack of film geniuses inbedded into our collective language lately.

I must say the name doesn't bother me very much but I'm not the only one who would prefer a differnt name, it was brought up recently on the user mailing list, and a bug report was filed and I didn't see the harm in allowing users to change the name if they really wanted to (and they still can if they are the kind of person who knows how to compile their own software, but that rules out most normal users).

with this sort of cord: http://www.boondoggleman.com/what_is_it.htm

Until now I was totally unaware that the term gimp also had that meaning. That idea could have been used to come up with a very interesting splash screen but I don't think anyone picked up on the idea.

i am becoming confusing again. i am sorry. let me try to sum it up this way: what gives you the right to inflict your perversions on a group of developers like that?

If you look again I am not trying to inflict anything on anyone. I do not apprecaite the implication that I'm perverted, if anything I would prefer to have a neutral word that has none of those connotations.

Most importantly I was not asking for the project to change name and not seeking to impose a new name on anyone else but merely asking why it was would not be acceptable to make it easier for those who would like to change the name for themselves.

if you have a problem with the name, perhaps you should fix yourself.

The name doesn't stop me using the GNU Image Manipulation Program, but it it is one more thing getting in the way of convincing other people to try it.

leave bugzilla for software problems.

I didn't file the bug report. Please do take a look at it first and read my other posts if you feel it is still necessary to reply to this message.

Sincerely

Alan Horkan.

Alan Horkan
2004-12-13 20:49:29 UTC (over 19 years ago)

Why not allow the name to be configurable?

The bug report in question was
http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=160890

I got the name wrong in the message body but it was correct in the message title.

On Sun, 2004-12-12 at 11:05, Sven Neumann wrote:

I seriously doubt that the name is effectively keeping GIMP from being used. And I am all happy to ignore the very few people who are so narrow-minded as to having a problem with the name.

Narrow minded PHB's or school principals are apparently part of the problem.

While I agree with most of what you've said in response to this thread, Sven, I take a bit of exception with this. Being one of the few open minded liberals stuck in Texas, I tend to be a little sensitive to being called narrow minded.

My apologies. I shouldn't have generalized here. As you pointed out there's a difference between having a problem with the name and refusing to accept the software because of the name and despite better knowledge.

So what I suggest we do is to keep the name,

Modifying or otherwise changing the official name causes far too many other problems (the website domain name for one thing) which is why I have only gone as far as to suggest that things be made easier for users to change for themselves.

but perhaps we can indeed do something about the way it is perceived. It could help to use the full name more.

I think that would help, especially for things like press releases. I usually try to use the long name to avoid any ambiguity.

Not saying that we should avoid using the acronym but perhaps it would be good if we could try to mention the full name

I would of course be willing to try and help with such an effort.

in release announcements and such at least once. If someone wants to review the README, NEWS. INSTALL files as well as

the man-pages for this, that would be appreciated.

the man page looks pretty good (at least on FreeBSD), the name is explained immediately and the acronym expanded at the start of the DESCRIPTION section. the man pages for gimprc, gimp-tool, and gimp-remote don't mention the full and unabbreviated name and I will try to take a close look at them later.

- Alan H.

Sven Neumann
2004-12-13 21:26:37 UTC (over 19 years ago)

Why not allow the name to be configurable?

Hi Alan,

didn't you say you would stop arguing on this stupid subject?

Sven

Carol Spears
2004-12-13 21:28:22 UTC (over 19 years ago)

Why not allow the name to be configurable? [was [Bug 160890] Change Gimp name (fwd)]

On Mon, Dec 13, 2004 at 06:11:39PM +0000, Alan Horkan wrote:

I do not know if you are a native English speaker but the term gimp is has a very similar meaning to "cripple". If you look at the bug report I point to some comments where people other than me say they have encountered difficulties, notably the embarassment of explaining the name really was the gimp to a person in a wheelchair and that the user was not mocking them.

i think (with my experience with this community) that this person needs to look at how he/she is treating the person in the wheelchair. i dont think (in my experience) that a defensive response like this can be blamed solely on the name of a piece of software. i would like to know more about the people involved in this story. there must have been some mocking before hand or the person has recently acquired the need for the wheelchair.

a name change will not fix either situation.

I'm not a big fan of "funny" project names because different people find completely different things funny, and I much prefer names that give some idea of what a project does (which the long form GNU Image Manipulation Program does serve that purpose).

your activity with this project seems to say that this is not an accurate statement.

carol

Alan Horkan
2004-12-14 15:52:43 UTC (over 19 years ago)

Why not allow the name to be configurable?

On Mon, 13 Dec 2004, Sven Neumann wrote:

Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 21:26:37 +0100 From: Sven Neumann
To: Alan Horkan
Cc: gimp-developer@lists.xcf.berkeley.edu Subject: Re: [Gimp-developer] Why not allow the name to be configurable?

Hi Alan,

didn't you say you would stop arguing on this stupid subject?

That was unnecessary.
What kind of reaction to you expect to a comment like that?

I thought I also said I wanted to reply to the other messages first (but I perhaps I didn't). I did not want to ignore the posts people had made, as they might consider it rude.

I had planned to add your answers to the User FAQ which I thought existed in Wiki, but according to the Developer FAQ there is no User FAQ.

Thank you again for taking the time to explain your reasons.

Now I'm really finished and wont make any further comments on the subject.

- Alan.