
Gimp Forked over “Offensive Name” - big_chungus
https://itsfoss.com/gimp-fork-glimpse/
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gnusty_gnurc
They're discussing rewriting code in D or Rust? I wasn't a fan of the rename
to begin with cause I thought it was trivial. But rewriting the code in
impractical languages cements my skepticism.

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zem
I feel like a rewrite of the UI would be very exciting even if it never
succeeds, simply because it will be a good large-scale test of D or Rust GUI
programming, and hopefully generate some good libraries in the process.

~~~
gnusty_gnurc
Power to them if they want to try. But I feel like there's more practical and
needed work on an important and somewhat unique program like Gimp. Again -
skeptical of anyone who calls for a rewrite of a codebase instead of fixing
things or building new features.

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taylodl
That's the beauty of open source software - you're free to fork and I'm free
to continue using GIMP. If GLIMPSE offers better functionality in the future
then I'm free to switch.

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sundbry
Glimpse sounds like a great name. If it brings new development into the
project it can't hurt. I have no problem with the GIMP name, as a frequent
user, but some times things need new names to evolve.

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hybrids
GIMP (GLIMPSE?) had a number of interface and overall "jankiness" problems
that, to my knowledge, it's core team never really sought to change. (I would
probably have to install it again and play around with it again to have a more
concrete idea of the osbtacles I remember). There was an old fork or plugin I
think at one time that tried to make the interface more Photoshop-like, but I
don't think it was very successful in the long run, not to say that painting
apps should perfectly replicate Photoshop's interface - certainly there is
room to explore potentially better alternatives. I just don't think GIMP is
_it_.

That being said I think Krita has proven relatively successful in the domain
of "open-source painting app". It has its own bits of jankiness here and there
but it has grown to include a robust feature set (including some coloring
tools which you won't find any analogue to in Photoshop) and has even acquired
support for the G'MIC filter suite from GIMP.

As for names, sometimes people just don't know how to swallow their pride. I'm
reminded of an incident with a certain Erlang package whose name had
unintentionally coincided with a certain racist slur in America. When called
out on this, it predictably bubbled into an argument; I think the author
doubled-down on keeping the name but later just gave up and changed it to
something less offensive. GIMP had the issue of people not wanting to use in
the context of school computers and businesses solely because of that name,
which I mean, if you refuse to do anything about that, you might have a
problem.

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perl4ever
"Krita has proven relatively successful in the domain of "open-source painting
app""

Ok, but is there a good alternative to GIMP as an open source _photo-editing
app_? Which is automatable? You use the past tense as though everyone already
stopped using it.

~~~
hybrids
Feel free to argue otherwise, but I think GIMP's relevance has waned over the
years, which is why I speak in that "past tense" you take issue with. For what
it's worth I think Krita has worth in the domain of photo manipulation as
well.

Krita also has automation utilities:

[https://docs.krita.org/en/reference_manual/main_menu/tools_m...](https://docs.krita.org/en/reference_manual/main_menu/tools_menu.html)

[https://docs.krita.org/en/user_manual/python_scripting/intro...](https://docs.krita.org/en/user_manual/python_scripting/introduction_to_python_scripting.html)

I'm curious how you use GIMP and whether or not Krita would prove usable for
you, i.e. if there's some critical specific functionality GIMP excels at where
Krita falls behind.

~~~
perl4ever
I never heard of Krita before this, but my background is of being a very
casual user of Photoshop which was pretty unaffordable in the 90s (other
people's licenses, plus there was a "lite" version included with a scanner
once) and when I first learned of GIMP, it was extremely annoying how much it
tried to imitate Photoshop yet be arbitrarily different, but eventually I
learned to do basic stuff in it. So now typically, I just want to resize a
picture, convert the format, change the gamma, do something simple with
layers, etc, and don't want to pay _or_ learn anything new.

However, I never did learn how to script GIMP, and it seems like I will need
to soon for maintaining a website, and if as I recall it has some sort of lisp
like thing, I'm kind of allergic to that. I don't know python either, but it's
probably more my speed.

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ksaj
Borderware firewall (from back in the 90's and Y2K) was originally called
Janus (after the Roman god of beginnings, gates, transitions, time, duality,
doorways, passages, and endings.) which seemed apropos at the time. But their
first big customers were in Sweden, where they kept pronouncing it like
"anus." Realizing they'd have this problem all over Europe and most of South
America, they changed the name.

That's a founding story that never made it to their website ABOUT page.

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jnordwick
Named partially after the movie Pulp Fiction and Ving Rhames's scene. "General
Image Manipulation Program" was kind of fit onto it. Not quite a backcronym,
but definitely thought of at the same time.

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walrus01
Sounds like a Scunthorpe problem.

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pvaldes
appropriating open source bit a bit...

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songshuu
Finally! They should have renamed a decade ago.

