John R. Culleton wrote:

ON another list someone was complaining about the expense nad bother of upgrading to the latest Photoshop, including licenses etc. I suggested Gimp as a no cost/no fuss alternative for students. I received a long reply, much of which I am not technically competent to answer. I have never used Photoshop. Anyone else care to take a crack at one or more issues raised? -------------------------------------------------------------------------

As much as I love The Gimp (I think its the most awesome piece of open source software around), if this is a school that is specifically preparing students for digital design practices in the real world they are going to need photoshop one way or another. After all it is still the industry standard.

My suggestion for this type of situation is this. Go with Photoshop licences, but not quite so many. If you were teaching my child I would want him or her to see all the main alternatives, not just the commercial one.

At least if they have a few Gimp'd machines they can do some real long term testing. Maybe they can get the students trained in bug fixing and feature programming. I hear GEGL needs some help? ;)

Regards,

Andrew Swinn

On 12/16/06, Andrew Swinn wrote:

John R. Culleton wrote:

ON another list someone was complaining about the expense nad bother of upgrading to the latest Photoshop, including licenses etc. I suggested Gimp as a no cost/no fuss alternative for students. I received a long reply, much of which I am not technically competent to answer. I have never used Photoshop. Anyone else care to take a crack at one or more issues raised? -------------------------------------------------------------------------

As much as I love The Gimp (I think its the most awesome piece of open source software around), if this is a school that is specifically preparing students for digital design practices in the real world they are going to need photoshop one way or another. After all it is still the industry standard.

My suggestion for this type of situation is this. Go with Photoshop licences, but not quite so many. If you were teaching my child I would want him or her to see all the main alternatives, not just the commercial one.

At least if they have a few Gimp'd machines they can do some real long term testing. Maybe they can get the students trained in bug fixing and feature programming. I hear GEGL needs some help? ;)

My own 2 cents: If you're teaching a class, use Gimp. They can always adapt what they learn in Gimp to Photoshop if their company requires it.

John R. Culleton wrote:

ON another list someone was complaining about the expense nad bother of upgrading to the latest Photoshop, including licenses etc. I suggested Gimp as a no cost/no fuss alternative for students. I received a long reply, much of which I am not technically competent to answer. I have never used Photoshop. Anyone else care to take a crack at one or more issues raised?

I never really saw PS as the world's premier example of ease-of-use, but regardless, this guy's done his homework and has come out in favour of PS for his students. Surely he knows best? It seems a sensible enough choice to me, given its position as the industry standard.

Since he's using Macs, he should probably put Seashore(1) on his watch list. It's a native fork of the Gimp, so it should help sooth his interface pains. I have no idea what the feature list is like though, or what their roadmap is. He may find it useful to look at in the future (as well as Gimp) if he's in this predicament again.

Anyway, Digg, Slashdot et al should provide you with enough comparisons to make you wish you'd never started this thread. :p

Regards, David

(1) http://seashore.sourceforge.net/

Here is my own modest grain of salt in the discussion:

I have been teaching Gimp to first-year university students for more than six years, to one or two hundreds students every year. I have never encountered any specific criticism among them about Gimp's GUI. More, I cannot understand what seems to be so fundamentally bad or wrong in that GUI. The remarks I read are not specific at all, and generally seem to boil down to one single reproach: Gimp is not Photoshop. I think that Gimp developers should not spend any time discussing this.

Somebody in this list said that teachers have the duty to teach what is an industry standard. My own strong opinion is that one of my duties as a university teacher is to try changing the industry standards, if I think they are inappropriate. If my students need later to learn using Photoshop or Vista, they will be able to learn them quickly and easily, and with an acutely critical mind (hopefully). For the present, I prefer to teach them Gimp and GNU/Linux, and to teach them not to accept any so-called standard without discussion and thought.

On Sun, 2006-12-17 at 14:23 +0100, Olivier Lecarme wrote:

Here is my own modest grain of salt in the discussion:

< snip >

Somebody in this list said that teachers have the duty to teach what is an industry standard. My own strong opinion is that one of my duties as a university teacher is to try changing the industry standards, if I think they are inappropriate. If my students need later to learn using Photoshop or Vista, they will be able to learn them quickly and easily, and with an acutely critical mind (hopefully). For the present, I prefer to teach them Gimp and GNU/Linux, and to teach them not to accept any so-called standard without discussion and thought.

Surely, it is most important to teach students the principals involved in a subject so that, at a later stage, they are better informed when it comes to choosing in which direction to proceed. It is the responsibility of Industry, not universities, to provide the training needed for its employees to do the jobs required of them. The new graduate should be able to bring fresh ideas to the world of work not perpetuate the status quo and, thereby, help to ensure that we all benefit from progress and change. I could go on but this is probably not the place to do so.

Norman

On 12/17/06, norman wrote:

On Sun, 2006-12-17 at 14:23 +0100, Olivier Lecarme wrote:

Here is my own modest grain of salt in the discussion:

< snip >

Somebody in this list said that teachers have the duty to teach what is an industry standard. My own strong opinion is that one of my duties as a university teacher is to try changing the industry standards, if I think they are inappropriate. If my students need later to learn using Photoshop or Vista, they will be able to learn them quickly and easily, and with an acutely critical mind (hopefully). For the present, I prefer to teach them Gimp and GNU/Linux, and to teach them not to accept any so-called standard without discussion and thought.

Surely, it is most important to teach students the principals involved in a subject so that, at a later stage, they are better informed when it comes to choosing in which direction to proceed. It is the responsibility of Industry, not universities, to provide the training needed for its employees to do the jobs required of them. The new graduate should be able to bring fresh ideas to the world of work not perpetuate the status quo and, thereby, help to ensure that we all benefit from progress and change. I could go on but this is probably not the place to do so.

Norman

As a career development student I'd have to agree that it's more important to learn general ideas and concepts, vs. the nitty gritty of one particular application/language, unless you want to learn that specific level of detail in an application.

My wife teaches Gimp to her Jr. High computer class, about 90 students a quarter...she wasn't teaching any advanced graphic editor at all until I showed her Gimp and how it was just as good if not better than the "industry standard" Photoshop, which is around $600+ for one license (there probably is a "school edition", but you get my point). Her students and school would never be able to afford that (nor should they in my opinion) when there is a competing product that is open source and available to all.

Also, the "industry standard" is subjective at best and from my perspective limited simply by choice. Take for excample programming - what would you say is the "industry standard" language? There are so many choices it's impossible to say.

Anthony Ettinger wrote:

On 12/17/06, norman wrote:

On Sun, 2006-12-17 at 14:23 +0100, Olivier Lecarme wrote:

Here is my own modest grain of salt in the discussion:

< snip >

Somebody in this list said that teachers have the duty to teach what is an industry standard. My own strong opinion is that one of my duties as a university teacher is to try changing the industry standards, if I think they are inappropriate. If my students need later to learn using Photoshop or Vista, they will be able to learn them quickly and easily, and with an acutely critical mind (hopefully). For the present, I prefer to teach them Gimp and GNU/Linux, and to teach them not to accept any so-called standard without discussion and thought.

Surely, it is most important to teach students the principals involved in a subject so that, at a later stage, they are better informed when it comes to choosing in which direction to proceed. It is the responsibility of Industry, not universities, to provide the training needed for its employees to do the jobs required of them. The new graduate should be able to bring fresh ideas to the world of work not perpetuate the status quo and, thereby, help to ensure that we all benefit from progress and change. I could go on but this is probably not the place to do so.

Norman

As a career development student I'd have to agree that it's more important to learn general ideas and concepts, vs. the nitty gritty of one particular application/language, unless you want to learn that specific level of detail in an application.

My wife teaches Gimp to her Jr. High computer class, about 90 students a quarter...she wasn't teaching any advanced graphic editor at all until I showed her Gimp and how it was just as good if not better than the "industry standard" Photoshop, which is around $600+ for one license (there probably is a "school edition", but you get my point). Her students and school would never be able to afford that (nor should they in my opinion) when there is a competing product that is open source and available to all.

Also, the "industry standard" is subjective at best and from my perspective limited simply by choice. Take for excample programming - what would you say is the "industry standard" language? There are so many choices it's impossible to say.

Not to mention that "industry standard" is a often a function of marketing as opposed to technical superiority or codification by some sort of standards body. E.g., Windows.

Bill Lee

This goes right to the heart of my biggest complaint about GIMP though: its name. I don't understand why the developers would put so much time and hard work into creating a program as professional as GIMP and then name it after a slang word for a disabled person. How do you sell that to a corporation? How do you market that? The people in business suits are going to chose a program named Photoshop over Gimp 11 times out of 10.

On 12/17/06, Bill Lee wrote:

Not to mention that "industry standard" is a often a function of marketing as opposed to technical superiority or codification by some sort of standards body. E.g., Windows.

Bill Lee

--
Carter

http://icasualties.org/oif/US_NAMES.aspx

Carter castor wrote:

This goes right to the heart of my biggest complaint about GIMP though: its name. I don't understand why the developers would put so much time and hard work into creating a program as professional as GIMP and then name it after a slang word for a disabled person. How do you sell that to a corporation? How do you market that? The people in business suits are going to chose a program named Photoshop over Gimp 11 times out of 10.

I personally think GIMP's cute (especially that wolf logo). But I'll put the question to you carter: if not GIMP, then what?

That 4% needs to be weighed against the proportion of people who use image manipulation programs. A much higher percentage of United States residents edit digital photographs than Nigerian citizens, for example.

Personally, I would name it after a famous painting or painter so that people would immediately associate the name with great art. Photoshop to me sounds very stale. But Starry Night or Van Gogh photo editing software? The possibilities are endless: Da Vinci, Monet, Matisse, Michelangelo, Caravaggio, etc.

I did have a couple other ideas, but after googling them, I found they were already in use.

Anyway, I was just making a suggestion. There is no need for that sort of language.

(And the wolf logo is awesome, props to the designer)

On 12/17/06, Chris Mohler wrote:

Suggest something else, or quit bitching.

Chris

On 12/17/06, Carter castor wrote:

This goes right to the heart of my biggest complaint about GIMP though: its name. I don't understand why the developers would put so much time and hard work into creating a program as professional as GIMP and then name it after a slang word for a disabled person. How do you sell that to a corporation? How do you market that? The people in business suits are going to chose a program named Photoshop over Gimp 11 times out of 10.

I disagree. Anyone who's serious about their business wouldn't rule out an application simply by it's name without considering it, especially if it's highly recommended.

You may have a point given 2 software boxes on a shelf, "Photoshop" is more descriptive than "Gimp" - But that isn't how people acquire Gimp.

John Meyer wrote:

Carter castor wrote:

This goes right to the heart of my biggest complaint about GIMP though: its name. I don't understand why the developers would put so much time and hard work into creating a program as professional as GIMP and then name it after a slang word for a disabled person.

I personally think GIMP's cute (especially that wolf logo). But I'll put the question to you carter: if not GIMP, then what?

OK, how about i-mage, pronounced "eye mage"? (-:

Cheers; Leon

"Anthony Ettinger" wrote:

You may have a point given 2 software boxes on a shelf, "Photoshop" is more descriptive than "Gimp" - But that isn't how people acquire Gimp.

Today.

What about in 3 years' time?

Cheers; Leon

On 12/17/06, Leon Brooks wrote:

"Anthony Ettinger" wrote:

You may have a point given 2 software boxes on a shelf, "Photoshop" is more descriptive than "Gimp" - But that isn't how people acquire Gimp.

Today.

What about in 3 years' time?

I still don't see it as name-only being a deal-breaker for someone who's interested in a graphic design application.

On 12/18/06, Leon Brooks wrote:

"Anthony Ettinger" wrote:

You may have a point given 2 software boxes on a shelf, "Photoshop" is more descriptive than "Gimp" - But that isn't how people acquire Gimp.

Today.

What about in 3 years' time?

I like the proposed alternate name far better than the current name, being that it is both punny and literal. I believe you'd have to work pretty hard to get such a change accepted, 'cause mainly of name recognition.

David Gowers wrote:

On 12/18/06, *Leon Brooks* > wrote:

"Anthony Ettinger" > wrote:
> You may have a point given 2 software boxes on a shelf, > "Photoshop" is more descriptive than "Gimp" - But that > isn't how people acquire Gimp.

Today.

What about in 3 years' time?

I like the proposed alternate name far better than the current name, being that it is both punny and literal. I believe you'd have to work pretty hard to get such a change accepted, 'cause mainly of name recognition.

Something else everyone needs to remember is Gimp is actually an acronym (GNU Image Manipulation Program) vs a "chosen" name.

Peace...

Tom

On 12/17/06, Tom Williams wrote:

David Gowers wrote:

On 12/18/06, *Leon Brooks* > wrote:

"Anthony Ettinger" > wrote:
> You may have a point given 2 software boxes on a shelf, > "Photoshop" is more descriptive than "Gimp" - But that > isn't how people acquire Gimp.

Today.

What about in 3 years' time?

I like the proposed alternate name far better than the current name, being that it is both punny and literal. I believe you'd have to work pretty hard to get such a change accepted, 'cause mainly of name recognition.

Something else everyone needs to remember is Gimp is actually an acronym (GNU Image Manipulation Program) vs a "chosen" name.

Peace...

"Bring out The Gimp...."

Olivier Lecarme wrote:

Here is my own modest grain of salt in the discussion:

I have been teaching Gimp to first-year university students for more than six years, to one or two hundreds students every year. I have never encountered any specific criticism among them about Gimp's GUI. More, I cannot understand what seems to be so fundamentally bad or wrong in that GUI. The remarks I read are not specific at all, and generally seem to boil down to one single reproach: Gimp is not Photoshop. I think that Gimp developers should not spend any time discussing this.

Somebody in this list said that teachers have the duty to teach what is an industry standard. My own strong opinion is that one of my duties as a university teacher is to try changing the industry standards, if I think they are inappropriate. If my students need later to learn using Photoshop or Vista, they will be able to learn them quickly and easily, and with an acutely critical mind (hopefully). For the present, I prefer to teach them Gimp and GNU/Linux, and to teach them not to accept any so-called standard without discussion and thought.

Chapeau!!
Andre den Oudsten

On 12/18/06, Anthony Ettinger wrote:

"Bring out The Gimp...."

How many people do you really think have seen that movie? For example, English is my native language, and I've never heard this movie reference until it was brought up repeatedly on this mailing list -- this is the third thread I have encountered so far in which one or two people say 'this is icky and bad' and most of the others either express that they don't care or that they've never heard of such a way of using the word gimp; I still have never seen or heard a reference in real life to Pulp Fiction or 'gimp'.

I think that a name change *could* attract some sorely needed developers, and users, too. If a movie reference is the reason you would like it changed.. I think your perception is lacking. In my case, I just find 'gimp' to be bland -- it's no fun to pronounce, it doesn't bring an image immediately to mind, it's non-obvious what it does, and it is not engaging (sillily or otherwise); on all these metrics I-Mage is superior.)

is this "teacher" getting a bribe from the photoshop salesman? operator

John R. Culleton wrote:

ON another list someone was complaining about the expense nad bother of upgrading to the latest Photoshop, including licenses etc. I suggested Gimp as a no cost/no fuss alternative for students. I received a long reply, much of which I am not technically competent to answer. I have never used Photoshop. Anyone else care to take a crack at one or more issues raised? -------------------------------------------------------------------------

I've checked out GIMP before.

I was going to try to run it again to see if this comment held any

water:

There may be a feature or two that are unique to Photoshop but I'll bet you
can live without them.

...but X11 choked on my 34 activated fonts. From what I recall of version 2.1.x, it (and I) suffered from its aggravating GUI and inconsistent tools, and a general lack of features. That being said, if friends and family members are pining for some way to scan and modify old photos, I install GIMP for them and show them how to do it.

GIMP works for casual use. I don't see it fitting into a professional workflow mainly because of the utter awkwardness of the GUI. Maybe if you're used to the Gnome UI standards or have the mindset of a programmer, it's less awkward. But that's another story. These are first year students I'm talking about here. They can barely get the OSX dock straight, let alone browsing for files in the GIMPs browser, which reveals the BSD underbelly of OSX, hidden folders and all.

Update: I gave X11 some time (10 minutes on my hermetically maintained dual 1.25 G4 with 2 gigs of ram) and it finally loaded GIMP and also GIMPshop. While it seems that the feature sets have expanded quite a bit, there are still things that I use regularly in Photoshop missing. Here's a list.

Adjustment layers: non-destructive editing. It can save you whole minutes if not dozens of them.
CMYK Support: Come on!
Wacom support- I'm sure you can get it working in linux, but we're not switching.
Semi-automated extraction- a real time saver. Live filter previews- what's the point without them? Color profiles (again, come on- how is importing an image into Scribus just to apply a color profile a productive workflow?) Limited output options (a.k.a. mostly useless file types) Vanishing Point (it's actually useful) No typeface previews

I could go on and on but I feel that I'm wasting breath, so to speak. Yeah, you can do a lot in the GIMP but it's just not enough. Beyond its limitations, it's difficult to use, doesn't play well with others, and would probably curl up in a ball and die if it tried to interact with our scanners on the intel machines. Photoshop saves time which saves money in the long run, and thus the software pays for itself. I'm not trying to say that GIMP isn't a great solution for Do-It-Yourselfers or Very-Small-Businesses, but if you're teaching students, there's a certain responsibility to focus on industry demands. I had a hard enough time getting them (the faculty) to give up Extensis Suitcase for Font Explorer X.

-Matt

(My first response follows)

Interesting response. Let me answer those objections that I can. 1. Load time: On a modest Linux system and using the stable verson 2.2.13 load time 10 seconds. Modest means a 768MHZ CPU and 512 MB ram.

2. Activated fonts. I estimate about 50 X11 fonts on my system. I got tired counting them onscreen.

3. Scanner: I use an Intel machine and activating the scanner means copying the xsane program to the Gimp plugins directory. Then on next reboot it shows up automatically on the Acquire menu. I scan all the time.

4. GUI: I use KDE. Gimp adapts nicely to that. KDE resembles MSWin. I set my teeniebopper granchild down on my computer and she was able to use Mozilla which she had never seen before and Kword which she had never seen before and the KDE interface itself which she had never seen before without any instruction after I showed her where to access the programs on the menu. The dreadfulness of GUI shock is IMO much overrated. I can go back and forth between KDE, Win 2000 and Win 98 without difficulty, though of course I prefer KDE.

5. CMYK support. In fact what you see on any screen is RGB. The latest unstable Gimp will convert an image by reducing its gamut to one resembling CMYK. You can even get cmyk separations. But for print work it is probably smart to do final checking in Scribus which does the whole CMYK bit, ICC profiles for monitor and printing etc. Now I would much prefer a Gimp that worked natively in CMYK. I have been pounding the drums for that for years. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- John Culleton
Able Indexing and Typesetting
Precision typesetting (tm) at reasonable cost. Satisfaction guaranteed.
http://wexfordpress.com

On 12/18/06, David Gowers wrote:

On 12/18/06, Anthony Ettinger wrote:

"Bring out The Gimp...."

How many people do you really think have seen that movie? For example, English is my native language, and I've never heard this movie reference until it was brought up repeatedly on this mailing list -- this is the third thread I have encountered so far in which one or two people say 'this is icky and bad' and most of the others either express that they don't care or that they've never heard of such a way of using the word gimp; I still have never seen or heard a reference in real life to Pulp Fiction or 'gimp'.

I think that a name change *could* attract some sorely needed developers, and users, too. If a movie reference is the reason you would like it changed.. I think your perception is lacking. In my case, I just find 'gimp' to be bland -- it's no fun to pronounce, it doesn't bring an image immediately to mind, it's non-obvious what it does, and it is not engaging (sillily or otherwise); on all these metrics I-Mage is superior.)

I like GIMP...it throws people off, usually resulting in my explaining the software to them, which is basically a sales pitch on my end.

I say keep it - true to many open source software packages that have abnormal names. As a developer I tend to take packages called "The Greatest *Whatever* Thing" with a grain of salt.

Eventually, everthing gets abbreviated anyway: (more commonly referred to as "TGWT" by it's users, in this hypothetical situation.

Anyway, instead of flaming, how about some suggestions:

Gimptastic Gimptacular
Gimpressive
Gimpression
Gimpified
GIM(p|age) -- another attempt at backwards + forwards compatibility GIMPage

Gnu Image Manipulator - GIM(p) --- for backwards compatibility

I would also think that it would be considerably better to have someone realize that just because the GUI is different, doesn't mean that it lacks in capability. I personally welcome GIMP's toolset, as well as it's capability. Although I have an older copy of Photoshop, which I spent about $650-$700 on (about 4 years ago), I find myself using GIMP a lot more than Photoshop. One of the features that I most thoroughly enjoy is saving of a file. I can simply save the file, by appending the appropriate filename extension. Then GIMP handles the rest for me, and prompts me if necessary (example: .jpg will prompt for what percentage of quality I want, in addition to optimization, progressive, sub-sampling, saving EXIF data, thumbnail, and a comment). I don't have to weed through a long list of file types, although if I want to, that option is also available.

As Bill Lee mentioned, industry standards are merely a figments of some groups desire to promote their product a decent amount of the time.

FWIW, I'm a primarily C/C++ programmer, and I've been back and forth between Unix and Windows (college, then the "real world", and now another world). Gaining the experience working with different platforms and their standards was critical in realizing I should merely expect certain things when I do a "Save", or "Save As", and not question the fact that someone thought it would be more efficient to force me to choose a file type in addition to typing the extension itself. I'm presently doing things on Unix with C/C++ and TCL/TK. IMHO, having non-rigid teaching would have benefitted me much earlier in my life.

Chris

-------------- Original message ------------

Anthony Ettinger wrote:

Anyway, instead of flaming, how about some suggestions:

Gimpressive Gimpression

Out of all the many suggested (re)names, these two are the only two I've ever seen and liked. Maybe because many GNU and GNOME programs already have a leading G in the name, leaving G-Impressive and G-Impression as the result, while still keeping a solid nod at the original GIMP acronym.

If the GIMP developers finally get fed up with all the arguments about the name :-) one of the above two would get my vote.

Cheers, Toby Haynes

Carter castor wrote:

This goes right to the heart of my biggest complaint about GIMP though: its name. I don't understand why the developers would put so much time and hard work into creating a program as professional as GIMP and then name it after a slang word for a disabled person. How do you sell that to a corporation? How do you market that? The people in business suits are going to chose a program named Photoshop over Gimp 11 times out of 10.

Oh my God, let's not start this again. It's an acronym, get over it.

Not to flame here or anything, but has anybody done an actual study as to if IT managers are overlooking GIMP because of the name, and I'm not talking anecdotes. I'm talking about a systematic survey. I don't deny that some people MAY have a bias against GIMP, but you need to look at the other side of the picture: what about the developers who still associate GIMP with a great program. Product names are filled with all sorts of good will, and if you're going to change, you'd better be able to sit down and say that there is a valid reason to do this. And while we're on the topic of names, here's one idea:

G-Lighten

Toby Haynes wrote:

Anthony Ettinger wrote:

Anyway, instead of flaming, how about some suggestions:

Gimpressive Gimpression

Out of all the many suggested (re)names, these two are the only two I've ever seen and liked. Maybe because many GNU and GNOME programs already have a leading G in the name, leaving G-Impressive and G-Impression as the result, while still keeping a solid nod at the original GIMP acronym.

If the GIMP developers finally get fed up with all the arguments about the name :-) one of the above two would get my vote.

Cheers, Toby Haynes

How do you sell that to a corporation? How do you market that? The people in business suits are going to chose a program named Photoshop over Gimp 11 times out of 10.

...and MS makes a good browser.

On 12/18/06, John Meyer wrote:

Not to flame here or anything, but has anybody done an actual study as to if IT managers are overlooking GIMP because of the name, and I'm not talking anecdotes. I'm talking about a systematic survey. I don't deny that some people MAY have a bias against GIMP, but you need to look at the other side of the picture: what about the developers who still associate GIMP with a great program. Product names are filled with all sorts of good will, and if you're going to change, you'd better be able to sit down and say that there is a valid reason to do this. And while we're on the topic of names, here's one idea:

Maybe linux journal, but I haven't seen anything specific toward Gimp.

From my own experience, I've been an early adopter with open source,

and find it funny that once something hits mainstream, like Ubuntu or Firefox - the same people that used to make comments like "I don't have any problem for *my* software." - tend to talk praise once it's become norm to use OS software ie. Firefox. Frankly, the point is that people tend to change their minds rather quickly with the proper influence.

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1

On Mon, 18 Dec 2006 17:01:59 -0800 Anthony Ettinger wrote:

How do you sell that to a corporation? How do you market that? The people in business suits are going to chose a program named Photoshop over Gimp 11 times out of 10.

...and MS makes a good browser.

Friend of mine was over on the weekend - I was doing some jpg work..and he asked what software I was using - when I told him it's called the Gimp, he fell over laughing. His comment "what is it about Linux geeks that they pick these weird names" - even when I explained its origin it didn't help - He added "Ask a car maker (like Ford) whether model names (like Edsel) are important". And this stuff like "GNU is not Unix" drives me crazy.

On 12/18/06, Frank McCormick wrote:

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1

On Mon, 18 Dec 2006 17:01:59 -0800 Anthony Ettinger wrote:

How do you sell that to a corporation? How do you market that? The people in business suits are going to chose a program named Photoshop over Gimp 11 times out of 10.

...and MS makes a good browser.

Friend of mine was over on the weekend - I was doing some jpg work..and he asked what software I was using - when I told him it's called the Gimp, he fell over laughing. His comment "what is it about Linux geeks that they pick these weird names" - even when I explained its origin it didn't help - He added "Ask a car maker (like Ford) whether model names (like Edsel) are important". And this stuff like "GNU is not Unix" drives me crazy.

Frank, you have a valid point when you're trying to sell a product. But open source has a tendency to go against the grain in this dept.

* Frank McCormick [12-18-06 21:22]:

drives me crazy.

well, you said he used windoz!

FWIW, I'm truly sorry for posting *anything* related to this thread, and especially for the nasty tone. I should know better.

Chris

Ok, that was too much. I wanted to send you a mail last time already, but I assumed that you did this accidentally. Obviously you didn't. So please, when posting to this list, try not to use HTML mail. And if you absolutely can't turn HTML mail off in your mail client, then at least don't fiddle with colors and/or fonts.

Learning how to quote properly would help as well...

Sven

On 12/19/06, Toby Haynes wrote:

Anthony Ettinger wrote:

Anyway, instead of flaming, how about some suggestions:

Gimpressive Gimpression

Out of all the many suggested (re)names, these two are the only two I've ever seen and liked. Maybe because many GNU and GNOME programs already have a leading G in the name, leaving G-Impressive and G-Impression as the result, while still keeping a solid nod at the original GIMP acronym.

If the GIMP developers finally get fed up with all the arguments about the name :-) one of the above two would get my vote.

Cheers, Toby Haynes
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I tried both, but since I'm using GIMP all the time i foundthe photoshop interface mostly chaotic. But I'm sure it must be the same for people who pass from PS to GIMP. Most people are complaining about the amount of windows the GIMP opens, but then virtual desktops handle this problem with ease and even turn it into an advantage.

As for learning PS or GIMP... i wonder how many students can afford to buy PS and also how many will really use all the tools that are in PS and not in GIMP. (apart adjustment layers, they are great and I wish they were in GIMP)

Speaking about Gimpression, it could be taken as a copy of the MS Expression at the time being. I think it is a great name, but people tend to exaggerate when it comes to "stealing".

I tried both, but since I'm using GIMP all the time i foundthe photoshop interface mostly chaotic. But I'm sure it must be the same for people who pass from PS to GIMP. Most people are complaining about the amount of windows the GIMP opens, but then virtual desktops handle this problem with ease and even turn it into an advantage.

As for learning PS or GIMP... i wonder how many students can afford to buy PS and also how many will really use all the tools that are in PS and not in GIMP. (apart adjustment layers, they are great and I wish they were in GIMP)

Speaking about Gimpression, it could be taken as a copy of the MS Expression at the time being. I think it is a great name, but people tend to exaggerate when it comes to "stealing".

I used to not like gimp when I first switched...but after spending the last few weeks intensely going through tutorials, et. al. I'm quite familiar with the interface now - and will never go back to PS.

For a class, I don't know, but for serious photo work, Photoshop is incredibly more advanced.
Some exampes:

Color:
- support for more than 8 bits/color/pixel (my scanners have 16) - support for color profiles (.icc profiles - how are you going to profile a printer otherwise?)
- support for color spaces (sRGB, but also Adobe98, etc etc)

Basic Processing: - Is able to dither when converting according to a curve or a color profile. This avoids color banding. - You can have adjustment layers, thus postponing both the decision, and the processing. Especially if you work with 8 bits/pixel, it makes quite a bit of difference.

Fancy Algorithms: There is a remarkable number of fancy algorithms built into Photoshop; some examples are:
- Good algorithms for correcting lens aberrations, color fringing, lens blur, and more.
- Good algorithms for collating images into a panoramic. - Good algorithms for producing extended dynamic range images. - Good algorithms for converting from one colorspace to the other - Good algorithms for shadow/highlight correction and the list goes on and on, even before counting the plug-ins many professionals developed.

I love the interface of Gimp, and I love linux and open source software, but it's Photoshop's management of color, and professional algorithms, that in the end make me go to Photoshop; Photoshop is a much superior tool for serious photography.

The problem is that it is the very heart of Gimp which is limited in its capabilities, so one cannot fix it in a lightweight way. If there is no notion of color space in an image... well! I am periodically torn between going to develop for cinepaint (at least they got the color spaces and profiles correct, one can just redo some algorithms), or rewriting a new tool for scratch in a decent language like Ocaml (I really have come to dislike C). However, in the end, as I lack time even for doing what I should be doing for my job, I do nothing, and I use mostly Photoshop for photo editing.

Luca

On 12/16/06, John R. Culleton wrote:

ON another list someone was complaining about the expense nad bother of upgrading to the latest Photoshop, including licenses etc. I suggested Gimp as a no cost/no fuss alternative for students. I received a long reply, much of which I am not technically competent to answer. I have never used Photoshop. Anyone else care to take a crack at one or more issues raised? -------------------------------------------------------------------------

I've checked out GIMP before.

I was going to try to run it again to see if this comment held any

water:

There may be a feature or two that are unique to Photoshop but I'll bet you
can live without them.

…but X11 choked on my 34 activated fonts. From what I recall of version 2.1.x, it (and I) suffered from its aggravating GUI and inconsistent tools, and a general lack of features. That being said, if friends and family members are pining for some way to scan and modify old photos, I install GIMP for them and show them how to do it.

GIMP works for casual use. I don't see it fitting into a professional workflow mainly because of the utter awkwardness of the GUI. Maybe if you're used to the Gnome UI standards or have the mindset of a programmer, it's less awkward. But that's another story. These are first year students I'm talking about here. They can barely get the OSX dock straight, let alone browsing for files in the GIMPs browser, which reveals the BSD underbelly of OSX, hidden folders and all.

Update: I gave X11 some time (10 minutes on my hermetically maintained dual 1.25 G4 with 2 gigs of ram) and it finally loaded GIMP and also GIMPshop. While it seems that the feature sets have expanded quite a bit, there are still things that I use regularly in Photoshop missing. Here's a list.

Adjustment layers: non-destructive editing. It can save you whole minutes if not dozens of them.
CMYK Support: Come on!
Wacom support- I'm sure you can get it working in linux, but we're not switching.
Semi-automated extraction- a real time saver. Live filter previews- what's the point without them? Color profiles (again, come on- how is importing an image into Scribus just to apply a color profile a productive workflow?) Limited output options (a.k.a. mostly useless file types) Vanishing Point (it's actually useful) No typeface previews

I could go on and on but I feel that I'm wasting breath, so to speak. Yeah, you can do a lot in the GIMP but it's just not enough. Beyond its limitations, it's difficult to use, doesn't play well with others, and would probably curl up in a ball and die if it tried to interact with our scanners on the intel machines. Photoshop saves time which saves money in the long run, and thus the software pays for itself. I'm not trying to say that GIMP isn't a great solution for Do-It-Yourselfers or Very-Small-Businesses, but if you're teaching students, there's a certain responsibility to focus on industry demands. I had a hard enough time getting them (the faculty) to give up Extensis Suitcase for Font Explorer X.

-Matt

(My first response follows)

Interesting response. Let me answer those objections that I can. 1. Load time: On a modest Linux system and using the stable verson 2.2.13 load time 10 seconds. Modest means a 768MHZ CPU and 512 MB ram.

2. Activated fonts. I estimate about 50 X11 fonts on my system. I got tired counting them onscreen.

3. Scanner: I use an Intel machine and activating the scanner means copying the xsane program to the Gimp plugins directory. Then on next reboot it shows up automatically on the Acquire menu. I scan all the time.

4. GUI: I use KDE. Gimp adapts nicely to that. KDE resembles MSWin. I set my teeniebopper granchild down on my computer and she was able to use Mozilla which she had never seen before and Kword which she had never seen before and the KDE interface itself which she had never seen before without any instruction after I showed her where to access the programs on the menu. The dreadfulness of GUI shock is IMO much overrated. I can go back and forth between KDE, Win 2000 and Win 98 without difficulty, though of course I prefer KDE.

5. CMYK support. In fact what you see on any screen is RGB. The latest unstable Gimp will convert an image by reducing its gamut to one resembling CMYK. You can even get cmyk separations. But for print work it is probably smart to do final checking in Scribus which does the whole CMYK bit, ICC profiles for monitor and printing etc. Now I would much prefer a Gimp that worked natively in CMYK. I have been pounding the drums for that for years. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- John Culleton
Able Indexing and Typesetting
Precision typesetting (tm) at reasonable cost. Satisfaction guaranteed.
http://wexfordpress.com

I, for one, don't believe that open source projects should necessarily avoid slang words. "Gimp" is a relatively obscure slang word. Let me define this: most English speakers speak English as a second language, and i bet 99% of them are not familiar with the unofficial uses of the word "Gimp". From the responses to similar threads in the past, not even a majority of US speakers knows the meaning of "Gimp" (of course, this may not be necessarily true locally in all communities). Moreover, these slang uses come and go. Yes, they may offend a small percent of US users, but that's far from the majority. There are too many such slang words that come and go to worry about them.

Once at a database conference, there were some Japanese giving a proud talk on the performance of their HECK algorithm (don't recall what it was). Funny - but notice, the paper WAS accepted. I bet they didn't study at school what HECK meant.

This is the problem for US and UK people: their language is being increasingly defined by people who speak it as a second language.

Luca

On 12/18/06, Frank McCormick wrote:

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On Mon, 18 Dec 2006 17:01:59 -0800 Anthony Ettinger wrote:

How do you sell that to a corporation? How do you market that? The people in business suits are going to chose a program named Photoshop over Gimp 11 times out of 10.

...and MS makes a good browser.

Friend of mine was over on the weekend - I was doing some jpg work..and he asked what software I was using - when I told him it's called the Gimp, he fell over laughing. His comment "what is it about Linux geeks that they pick these weird names" - even when I explained its origin it didn't help - He added "Ask a car maker (like Ford) whether model names (like Edsel) are important". And this stuff like "GNU is not Unix" drives me crazy.

-- Cheers

Frank

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Looking into different English-Russian dictionaries (the most comprehensive ones) I can see the meaning of the word gimp, being discussed here, as the 3-rd or 6-th in the order of usage frequency. Others are (synonyms)
1. galloon, braid
2. spirit, vim
3. may be limp, may be neckerchief
4. Scottish: slim, elegant
...

Gimping: clothing industry: cutting of tooth at detail cut

Gimpy: miserable, lame man

Gimper: American: excellent professional (about military person).

As any English word has so many meanings, it's hard to avoid some of them. Not to be offensive, but even the word "queen" has one not so wide spoken meaning. And what?

The ones, whose mother tongue is not English would not consider this at all. As for inhabitants of English speaking countries - its their peculiarity, what meaning would come in their mind when they hear the word "Gimp".

Luca de Alfaro wrote:

I, for one, don't believe that open source projects should necessarily avoid slang words. "Gimp" is a relatively obscure slang word. Let me define this: most English speakers speak English as a second language, and i bet 99% of them are not familiar with the unofficial uses of the word "Gimp". From the responses to similar threads in the past, not even a majority of US speakers knows the meaning of "Gimp" (of course, this may not be necessarily true locally in all communities). Moreover, these slang uses come and go. Yes, they may offend a small percent of US users, but that's far from the majority. There are too many such slang words that come and go to worry about them.

Once at a database conference, there were some Japanese giving a proud talk on the performance of their HECK algorithm (don't recall what it was). Funny - but notice, the paper WAS accepted. I bet they didn't study at school what HECK meant.

This is the problem for US and UK people: their language is being increasingly defined by people who speak it as a second language.

Luca

"Luca de Alfaro" writes:

- support for color profiles (.icc profiles - how are you going to profile a printer otherwise?)

One thing I never understood is:

Why do applications have to deal with color profiles?

Color profiles are hardware device specific and at least in the case of printers they are specific to the combination of printer and driver (and paper). I think color profiles are best dealt with in the device driver. That way the output of all applications will be consistant and every application does not need to reinvent the wheel.

Matthias

"Chris Mohler" writes:

One thing I never understood is:

Why do applications have to deal with color profiles?

Color profiles are hardware device specific and at least in the case of printers they are specific to the combination of printer and driver (and paper). I think color profiles are best dealt with in the device driver. That way the output of all applications will be consistant and every application does not need to reinvent the wheel.

Matthias

That seems to be the thinking behind leaving the CMYK space(s) behind. OTOH, there are several uses for ICC profiles in RGB space(s) - monitor calibration, for one.

I suspect Chris' reply was meant to go to the list. So I reply here.

Monitor calibration should be done in the video driver. Or in the monitor.

Matthias

I suspect Chris' reply was meant to go to the list. So I reply here.

Whoops - thanks.

Monitor calibration should be done in the video driver. Or in the monitor.

You're probably right.

Chris

I wholeheartedly agree.
It is an absurdity that some print drivers ship with separate .icc profiles.

I am not quite sure why the situation evolved, but I suspect that professional users started to wish to have a way to calibrate their output for their specific printer (even now, people who care about color matching have their specific printer profiled). As it was difficult to modify the printer driver to accept the .icc profile, the developers of sophisticated applications such as Photoshop started to include support for such profiles.

So, it is a good point that in the gimp architecture, perhaps gimp-print or gutenprint is the most logical place where to support printer profiles.

Luca

On 12/21/06, Chris Mohler wrote:

I suspect Chris' reply was meant to go to the list. So I reply here.

Whoops - thanks.

Monitor calibration should be done in the video driver. Or in the monitor.

You're probably right.

Chris

Luca de Alfaro wrote:

I, for one, don't believe that open source projects should necessarily avoid slang words. "Gimp" is a relatively obscure slang word. Let me define this: most English speakers speak English as a second language, and i bet 99% of them are not familiar with the unofficial uses of the word "Gimp". From the responses to similar threads in the past, not even a majority of US speakers knows the meaning of "Gimp" (of course, this may not be necessarily true locally in all communities). Moreover, these slang uses come and go. Yes, they may offend a small percent of US users, but that's far from the majority. There are too many such slang words that come and go to worry about them.

1. Gimp means "to walk with a limp" in English and is slang. Oddly, it also means "vigor, spirit" and that is not slang. It also means " a stiff trim border or course thread used for making outlines of designs or designs on garments." This also is not slang. Most English speakers generally relate gimp to the slang variant, most of us are familiar with it and most of us consider it to be something negative.

2, The vast majority of English speakers have no reason to know the meaning of GIMP, as it applies to the graphics application suite. They don't use it and most would find it to difficult to use even if they did know what it was. They always have something much less complicated and more understandable to them to meet their everyday needs. The same most probably is true in most parts of the world.

3. The Linux community, in general, has always been stuck on naming their functions, progs, apps, etc. in a manner that someone heavy into programming and development can relate to but it always seems to leave the actual application user in the fog because they cannot relate it to what it actually is or does. They get stuck with the technical description. Imagine if Corel developed Draw! under the name VGRP for vector graphics rendering program. Corel VGRP! Oh yeah, that would go over like a lead balloon.

4. An application should always be named with the target audience being considered if you're looking for product exposure. In the case of The Gimp, the target audience is not programmers and software developers. When the intended audience sees the name they need it to relate to "graphics" in their thoughts. The word Gimp does not even come close. It gives us mere mortals absolutely no indication of what it actually is or does, even though it has tremendous artistic and image manipulation capabilities.

5. The Gimp's GUI, unfortunately, is in direct opposition to human logic and our normal thought patterns. I have no other way to describe it. I know of no one under any OS that emulates The Gimp's GUI strategy. There's probably good reason for that.

Luca de Alfaro wrote:

I wholeheartedly agree.
It is an absurdity that some print drivers ship with separate .icc profiles.

I am not quite sure why the situation evolved, but I suspect that professional users started to wish to have a way to calibrate their output for their specific printer (even now, people who care about color matching have their specific printer profiled). As it was difficult to modify the printer driver to accept the .icc profile, the developers of sophisticated applications such as Photoshop started to include support for such profiles.

So, it is a good point that in the gimp architecture, perhaps gimp-print or gutenprint is the most logical place where to support printer profiles.

Luca

On 12/21/06, Chris Mohler wrote:

I suspect Chris' reply was meant to go to the list. So I reply here.

Whoops - thanks.

Monitor calibration should be done in the video driver. Or in the monitor.

You're probably right.

Chris _______________________________________________

It should be pointed out that an icc profile is not for a printer, but rather a printer and a specific paper. You need separate ones for each type of paper. If you're really fussy, you might want to change the profile for each box of paper. In any event, the profile for matte paper is definitely different from glossy paper. Some printers even use different inks for them.

Similarly, monitors change over time and need to be re-profiled as they do. The default for a Spyder2PRO is weekly.

Trapper wrote:

5. The Gimp's GUI, unfortunately, is in direct opposition to human logic and our normal thought patterns. I have no other way to describe it. I know of no one under any OS that emulates The Gimp's GUI strategy. There's probably good reason for that.

I don't find Gimp to be perfect, but neither terrible, and Photoshop is no better.
In Gimp, there are these various things that put off new users: if you just want to change the colors, why do you have to bother with the "layers" menu if you don't even know (at first) what is a layer? Once you learn, why are things replicated under Layer and Tools? Why are some things Tools (e.g., levels) and other Filters? It doesn't make a lot of sense.

On the other hand, Photoshop is equally criptic and nonsensical, and awkward. So many of the useful things are hidden in Image->Adjustments : as so many things are there, and the Image menu is quite empty otherwise, Adjustments should have been a top-level menu. Also, it's very hard to understand why things are listed both as Image->Adjustments and Layer -> New Adjustment Layer, and the worst is that those two things behave in slightly different ways. And why some things have an adjustment layer, while others (unsharp mask for instance) are filters that once applied, cannot be modified?

I guess that it is just difficult to organize all the functions of an image editing tool in a way that is both logical, and that leads to productive use. I wonder about Picasa, actually. But at any rate, I feel your criticism of Gimp is grossly exagerated, in the sense that it does not seem any worse than Photoshop, Powerpoint, Word, and is certainly better than Openoffice.

Luca

Correct. However, there is no reason why these .icc profiles should go in photoshop rather than in the printer driver. Especially as I have anyway to tell my printer driver (I am not sure why) which kind of paper I am using.
Luca

On 12/21/06, Bob Ewart wrote:

It should be pointed out that an icc profile is not for a printer, but rather a printer and a specific paper. You need separate ones for each type of paper. If you're really fussy, you might want to change the profile for each box of paper. In any event, the profile for matte paper is definitely different from glossy paper. Some printers even use different inks for them.

Similarly, monitors change over time and need to be re-profiled as they do. The default for a Spyder2PRO is weekly.

-- Bob

< big snip >

4. An application should always be named with the target audience being considered if you're looking for product exposure. In the case of The Gimp, the target audience is not programmers and software developers. When the intended audience sees the name they need it to relate to "graphics" in their thoughts. The word Gimp does not even come close. It gives us mere mortals absolutely no indication of what it actually is or does, even though it has tremendous artistic and image manipulation capabilities.

This may have been said before, if so, I am sorry. I presume that readers of this list come from many parts of the world yet most of the critics of the name Gimp refer to English meanings. The question is, must a product describe its purpose by its name? Very often it is considered bad practice for a name to do this. The name may infer the purpose without actually being descriptive. If a truly neutral name can be found then that is the one to use. Great care needs to be used in choosing names for products with a world wide potential. Remember the famous example of Rolls Royce, who named their new car Silver Mist. The name was quickly withdrawn. Ask a German and learn why.

Now, who can tell me what Gimp means in French or German or Italian or Russian or Chinese to mention but a few? Similarly, what is Photoshop in those languages so that the name shows its purpose? If there are no satisfactory answers to these 2 simple questions then I suggest this thread should stop as it is meaningless.

Norman

Luca de Alfaro wrote:

Correct. However, there is no reason why these .icc profiles should go in photoshop rather than in the printer driver. Especially as I have anyway to tell my printer driver (I am not sure why) which kind of paper I am using.
Luca

On 12/21/06, Bob Ewart wrote:

It should be pointed out that an icc profile is not for a printer, but rather a printer and a specific paper. You need separate ones for each type of paper. If you're really fussy, you might want to change the profile for each box of paper. In any event, the profile for matte paper is definitely different from glossy paper. Some printers even use different inks for them.

Similarly, monitors change over time and need to be re-profiled as they do. The default for a Spyder2PRO is weekly.

On Monday 18 December 2006 19:52, lists wrote:

Carter castor wrote:

This goes right to the heart of my biggest complaint about GIMP though: its name. I don't understand why the developers would put so much time and hard work into creating a program as professional as GIMP and then name it after a slang word for a disabled person. How do you sell that to a corporation? How do you market that? The people in business suits are going to chose a program named Photoshop over Gimp 11 times out of 10.

Oh my God, let's not start this again. It's an acronym, get over it.

Oh wait, Geoffrey says "Get over it". Everybody with an opinion or actual relevent facts, forget it. Geoffrey said so.

Speaking about Gimpression, it could be taken as a copy of the MS Expression at the time being. I think it is a great name, but people tend to exaggerate when it comes to "stealing".

What? No. Gimpression would NOT be confused with that. I think it's a great name.

Brendan wrote:

On Monday 18 December 2006 19:52, lists wrote:

Carter castor wrote:

This goes right to the heart of my biggest complaint about GIMP though: its name. I don't understand why the developers would put so much time and hard work into creating a program as professional as GIMP and then name it after a slang word for a disabled person. How do you sell that to a corporation? How do you market that? The people in business suits are going to chose a program named Photoshop over Gimp 11 times out of 10.

Oh my God, let's not start this again. It's an acronym, get over it.

Oh wait, Geoffrey says "Get over it". Everybody with an opinion or actual relevent facts, forget it. Geoffrey said so.

If you'll check the bloody archives, you'll see this same subject has been discussed ad nauseam more then once. So, before you post, research the archives before wasting a bunch of bandwidth on a horse that's been beat to death. Jerk.

Brendan wrote:

On Monday 18 December 2006 19:52, lists wrote:

Carter castor wrote:

This goes right to the heart of my biggest complaint about GIMP though: its name. I don't understand why the developers would put so much time and hard work into creating a program as professional as GIMP and then name it after a slang word for a disabled person. How do you sell that to a corporation? How do you market that? The people in business suits are going to chose a program named Photoshop over Gimp 11 times out of 10.

Oh my God, let's not start this again. It's an acronym, get over it.

Oh wait, Geoffrey says "Get over it". Everybody with an opinion or actual relevent facts, forget it. Geoffrey said so.

Well, he's got a valid point. I don't get why everyone is discussing the word "Gimp" from an English language standpoint when Gimp is an *acronym*, as I also pointed out earlier on in this discussion.

For example, "Sarasota County Area Transit" is a name of a transit agency and its acronym is rather interesting. :)

Peace...

Tom

* Tom Williams [12-21-06 21:10]:

For example, "Sarasota County Area Transit" is a name of a transit agency and its acronym is rather interesting. :)

Ella would agree, rest her sole.

On Thursday 21 December 2006 17:39, lists wrote:

Brendan wrote:

On Monday 18 December 2006 19:52, lists wrote:

Carter castor wrote:

This goes right to the heart of my biggest complaint about GIMP though: its name. I don't understand why the developers would put so much time and hard work into creating a program as professional as GIMP and then name it after a slang word for a disabled person. How do you sell that to a corporation? How do you market that? The people in business suits are going to chose a program named Photoshop over Gimp 11 times out of 10.

Oh my God, let's not start this again. It's an acronym, get over it.

Oh wait, Geoffrey says "Get over it". Everybody with an opinion or actual relevent facts, forget it. Geoffrey said so.

If you'll check the bloody archives, you'll see this same subject has been discussed ad nauseam more then once. So, before you post, research the archives before wasting a bunch of bandwidth on a horse that's been beat to death. Jerk.

Whether you like it or not, I suspect that the subject will keep coming up because the name offends the sensibilities of a lot of potential users.

Now I know that the name is an acronym, and I don't believe those who chose the name did so with any intent to offend, or even to be humourous. I suspect they didn't think all that much about the name at all. For many handicapped people, however calling one of them a "GIMP" is as offensive as calling a gay person a "faggot".

Most of us who are now on the list will have seen the discussion wax and wane, but in a month or two, someone else will come to the list and make the same observation, and predictably someone will have the intolerance to tell them to get over it, and that we've had the discussion.

I really do think we need to find a better, less offensive name for GIMP, and the sooner the better, so that we can put energy into supporting it, and doing whatever we can to extend it's use instead of periodically having this disagreement.

I'm lazy, and I don't feel like reading this entire thread (it seems to show up on a regular basis on the list).

Were any new, constructive insights brought up? Anyone care to summarize this thread on this exhausting topic?

EP

Eric P wrote:

I'm lazy, and I don't feel like reading this entire thread (it seems to show up on a regular basis on the list).

Were any new, constructive insights brought up? Anyone care to summarize this thread on this exhausting topic?

Summary to date: Noobs keep joining the list and want the name changed to match their sensibilities. They threaten to continue to add to the noise part of the signal to noise ratio until they get their way (see "kill file"). I suggest a new list dedicated to their traffic; gimp-name-haters@, thereby relieving the rest of the users and devo's from actually having to slog through their repeated attempts at "reasoning".

At least at the current levels, it's easy to know when a thread starts heading in that direction, and tell t'bird to bit bucket the messages.

jim

Speaking about Gimpression, it could be taken as a copy of the MS Expression at the time being. I think it is a great name, but people tend to exaggerate when it comes to "stealing".

What? No. Gimpression would NOT be confused with that. I think it's a great name.

I note that, so far, no one has taken up my challenge.

Norman

Trapper wrote:

Most English speakers
generally relate gimp to the slang variant, most of us are familiar with it and most of us consider it to be something negative.

Can I just change that to "most American English speakers?" I learnt the meaning of the slang word "gimp" while reading a similar discussion to this on a news forum a couple of years ago.

Trapper wrote:

1. Gimp means "to walk with a limp" in English and is slang. ........... Most English speakers generally relate gimp to the slang variant, most of us are familiar with it and most of us consider it to be something negative.

It would be very nice if people looked up the archives once in a while..............
.... and if they didn't take quite so provincial an attitude ;-) What you mean is "...."limp" in American English .... Speakers of American English....".

As earlier threads have already pointed out, most non-American English speakers don't know this use of the word; and in a comprehensive dictionary like the Oxford English dictionary, it's noted as a specifically North American usage.

FWIW most speakers of English live on the Indian sub-continent!

Doug

jim wrote:

Eric P wrote:

I'm lazy, and I don't feel like reading this entire thread (it seems to show up on a regular basis on the list).

Were any new, constructive insights brought up? Anyone care to summarize this thread on this exhausting topic?

Summary to date: Noobs keep joining the list and want the name changed to match their sensibilities. They threaten to continue to add to the noise part of the signal to noise ratio until they get their way (see "kill file"). I suggest a new list dedicated to their traffic; gimp-name-haters@, thereby relieving the rest of the users and devo's from actually having to slog through their repeated attempts at "reasoning".

At least at the current levels, it's easy to know when a thread starts heading in that direction, and tell t'bird to bit bucket the messages.

jim

Or how about adding a section to the list-etiquette, referring them to one of the earlier threads?
Anything to pre-empt the very tedious subject coming up yet again ;-)

Doug

/rotflmao :-) lol/

Brendan wrote:

On Thursday 21 December 2006 21:06, Tom Williams wrote:

Brendan wrote:

On Monday 18 December 2006 19:52, lists wrote:

Carter castor wrote:

This goes right to the heart of my biggest complaint about GIMP though: its name. I don't understand why the developers would put so much time and hard work into creating a program as professional as GIMP and then name it after a slang word for a disabled person. How do you sell that to a corporation? How do you market that? The people in business suits are going to chose a program named Photoshop over Gimp 11 times out of 10.

Oh my God, let's not start this again. It's an acronym, get over it.

Oh wait, Geoffrey says "Get over it". Everybody with an opinion or actual relevent facts, forget it. Geoffrey said so.

Well, he's got a valid point. I don't get why everyone is discussing the word "Gimp" from an English language standpoint when Gimp is an *acronym*, as I also pointed out earlier on in this discussion.

For example, "Sarasota County Area Transit" is a name of a transit agency and its acronym is rather interesting. :)

What if they wanted to just call it SCAT, and then pretended to be "so confused" when people laughed? "Jeez, it's just an acronym, even if 300 million people might giggle and laugh when I say it. Oh well, those Indians won't laugh when I say GIMP or SCAT."

On Thursday 21 December 2006 23:51, Robert Smits wrote:

Oh wait, Geoffrey says "Get over it". Everybody with an opinion or actual relevent facts, forget it. Geoffrey said so.

If you'll check the bloody archives, you'll see this same subject has been discussed ad nauseam more then once. So, before you post, research the archives before wasting a bunch of bandwidth on a horse that's been beat to death. Jerk.

Whether you like it or not, I suspect that the subject will keep coming up because the name offends the sensibilities of a lot of potential users.

Now I know that the name is an acronym, and I don't believe those who chose the name did so with any intent to offend, or even to be humourous. I suspect they didn't think all that much about the name at all. For many handicapped people, however calling one of them a "GIMP" is as offensive as calling a gay person a "faggot".

Most of us who are now on the list will have seen the discussion wax and wane, but in a month or two, someone else will come to the list and make the same observation, and predictably someone will have the intolerance to tell them to get over it, and that we've had the discussion.

I really do think we need to find a better, less offensive name for GIMP, and the sooner the better, so that we can put energy into supporting it, and doing whatever we can to extend it's use instead of periodically having this disagreement.

Yes *points at best post in thread*

On Friday 22 December 2006 02:44, jim wrote:

Eric P wrote:

I'm lazy, and I don't feel like reading this entire thread (it seems to show up on a regular basis on the list).

Were any new, constructive insights brought up? Anyone care to summarize this thread on this exhausting topic?

Summary to date: Noobs keep joining the list and want the name changed to match their sensibilities. They threaten to continue to add to the noise part of the signal to noise ratio until they get their way (see "kill file"). I suggest a new list dedicated to their traffic; gimp-name-haters@, thereby relieving the rest of the users and devo's from actually having to slog through their repeated attempts at "reasoning".

It's good to see that this happens SO OFTEN that cutesy little paragraphs can be written about how a few people know so much better than the "Noobs". God, what condescension and arrogance.

On Thursday 21 December 2006 21:06, Tom Williams wrote:

Brendan wrote:

On Monday 18 December 2006 19:52, lists wrote:

Carter castor wrote:

This goes right to the heart of my biggest complaint about GIMP though: its name. I don't understand why the developers would put so much time and hard work into creating a program as professional as GIMP and then name it after a slang word for a disabled person. How do you sell that to a corporation? How do you market that? The people in business suits are going to chose a program named Photoshop over Gimp 11 times out of 10.

Oh my God, let's not start this again. It's an acronym, get over it.

Oh wait, Geoffrey says "Get over it". Everybody with an opinion or actual relevent facts, forget it. Geoffrey said so.

Well, he's got a valid point. I don't get why everyone is discussing the word "Gimp" from an English language standpoint when Gimp is an *acronym*, as I also pointed out earlier on in this discussion.

For example, "Sarasota County Area Transit" is a name of a transit agency and its acronym is rather interesting. :)

What if they wanted to just call it SCAT, and then pretended to be "so confused" when people laughed? "Jeez, it's just an acronym, even if 300 million people might giggle and laugh when I say it. Oh well, those Indians won't laugh when I say GIMP or SCAT."

On Fri, Dec 22, 2006 at 12:25:35AM -0600, Eric P wrote:

I'm lazy, and I don't feel like reading this entire thread (it seems to show up on a regular basis on the list).

Were any new, constructive insights brought up? Anyone care to summarize this thread on this exhausting topic?

Other than the idea of putting a webpage up detailing why a name change is not viable, and such proposals are not welcome on this list, none whatsoever.

As usual, this thread is started and mainly populated by people who don't actually contribute to the project, probably because they don't have anything to speak of in the talent or brains department, and thus have to feel better about themselves by whining about *something*. These people have of course not read prior threads, or perhaps choose to ignore them, since several good reasons *not* to change the name in prior discussions are left unrefuted.

Along with the webpage about why a name change isn't a good idea, it's tempting to put a list of names of people who have started and dragged on this sort of thread, with an explanation of how these people:

a) make snap judgements on software based on name, not on merit b) think one or two anecdotes constitutes real research c) are completely clueless about marketing, since they can't recognize the power of a well established brand d) thusly, should never be taken seriously, let alone hired for anything

GIMP has pretty good google ranking, so the page should be ranked highly for said people's names.

Pointing out idiots publicly is kind of mean though, so perhaps not.

-Yosh

Brendan wrote:

On Friday 22 December 2006 02:44, jim wrote:

Eric P wrote:

I'm lazy, and I don't feel like reading this entire thread (it seems to show up on a regular basis on the list).

Were any new, constructive insights brought up? Anyone care to summarize this thread on this exhausting topic?

Summary to date: Noobs keep joining the list and want the name changed to match their sensibilities. They threaten to continue to add to the noise part of the signal to noise ratio until they get their way (see "kill file"). I suggest a new list dedicated to their traffic; gimp-name-haters@, thereby relieving the rest of the users and devo's from actually having to slog through their repeated attempts at "reasoning".

It's good to see that this happens SO OFTEN that cutesy little paragraphs can be written about how a few people know so much better than the "Noobs". God, what condescension and arrogance.

If by "condescension and arrogance" you mean no longer wanting to have to slog through the same repeated arguments made by people who feel that the name of an app seems to need more discussion than how the app works, well then yes. It's GPL'ed. If you don't like it, fork it and call it whatever you're little heart desires. You won't because it's been suggested before, and naught has happened (that's been announced anyway).

Geez, go out and buy yourself a sense of humor for the holidays.

btw, thanks for the new kill file entry

jim

I should also mention that this sort of thing comes up on the freebsd lists periodically. "If you'd only change the mascot and drop the whole daemon thing, my church/tiny business would decide to use your operating system. Maybe something cute like a penguin or a kitty waving it's paw?"

(the last line being an arrogant and condescending summary of the responses)

jim

On 12/22/06, Doug wrote:

As earlier threads have already pointed out, most non-American English speakers don't know this use of the word; and in a comprehensive dictionary like the Oxford English dictionary, it's noted as a specifically North American usage.

FWIW most speakers of English live on the Indian sub-continent!

Doug

The fact isn't that the speakers of English live on another continent, the issue is that the educational level of people isn't what it once was. Debating the word Gimp sort of is like debating a word like faggot, gay, or the pronunciation of the word forte (which should sound like the word fort). What they mean now isn't what they use to mean, what people have to understand is that the English language changes, and those changes aren't always for the better... Words change in some cases due to the lack of education, or lack of people correcting others when they hear a misuse of a word. It be nice if people actually used the word correctly, but then if we corrected everyone every time we heard a misused word, we would have less people in the open spotlight because we would find out that the majority of people truly are stupid.

Lets get over the egos and just get back to talking about the functionality of the software, and not the complexities of the word of the software itself ok?

dont worry.
be happy.
just press the delete button.

Robert Smits wrote:

On Thursday 21 December 2006 17:39, lists wrote:

Brendan wrote:

On Monday 18 December 2006 19:52, lists wrote:

Carter castor wrote:

This goes right to the heart of my biggest complaint about GIMP though: its name. I don't understand why the developers would put so much time and hard work into creating a program as professional as GIMP and then name it after a slang word for a disabled person. How do you sell that to a corporation? How do you market that? The people in business suits are going to chose a program named Photoshop over Gimp 11 times out of 10.

Oh my God, let's not start this again. It's an acronym, get over it.

Oh wait, Geoffrey says "Get over it". Everybody with an opinion or actual relevent facts, forget it. Geoffrey said so.

If you'll check the bloody archives, you'll see this same subject has been discussed ad nauseam more then once. So, before you post, research the archives before wasting a bunch of bandwidth on a horse that's been beat to death. Jerk.

Whether you like it or not, I suspect that the subject will keep coming up because the name offends the sensibilities of a lot of potential users.

Now I know that the name is an acronym, and I don't believe those who chose the name did so with any intent to offend, or even to be humourous. I suspect they didn't think all that much about the name at all. For many handicapped people, however calling one of them a "GIMP" is as offensive as calling a gay person a "faggot".

Most of us who are now on the list will have seen the discussion wax and wane, but in a month or two, someone else will come to the list and make the same observation, and predictably someone will have the intolerance to tell them to get over it, and that we've had the discussion.

I really do think we need to find a better, less offensive name for GIMP, and the sooner the better, so that we can put energy into supporting it, and doing whatever we can to extend it's use instead of periodically having this disagreement.

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