Great stuff. I'm looking forward to 2.10. GIMP is my tool when I want to edit photos or create Christmas cards.
Even though I hear this quote ringing in my ear, and I can't seem to shake it, mainly because of who said it:
"Yet I think that a few programs, such as Adobe Photoshop, will always be superior to competitors like the Gimp—for some reason, I really don’t know why! I’m quite willing to pay good money for really good software, if I believe that it has been produced by the best programmers." [1]
>Even though I hear this quote ringing in my ear, and I can't seem to shake it, mainly because of who said it
1) Photoshop had a 10+ year head start and tons of patents.
2) Adobe can pay programmers to work on it as their main and sole focus. GIMP is stuffed by volunteers.
3) Adobe can pay programmers to work on boring parts. OSS programmers tend to navigate to the "glorious" and "fun" parts.
4) Adobe has extensive testing equipment and top notch relations with top designers using its products for feedback.
5) At some point GTK, the toolkit GIMP (and Gnome and tons of other stuff) is based on, had just one developer working actively on it. I know because he blogged about it, and was fed up. That's not really what you want for your core infrastructure.
6) Adobe actively maintains Windows and OS X releases. GTK has mostly given up on other platforms and had historically had lots of problems.
GTK is probably the main reason Gimp isn't a serious competitor in professional work, then. I can imagine what monumental task it must be to maintain a cross-platform GUI toolkit, but it's IMO the single most important aspect of Gimp. Let's face it, all the features are there. Maybe 5% of Photoshop's deep ocean of features is actually used by the average user, Gimp can provide almost the complete functionality. Some extra performance and nice-to-have tweaks might still make a difference, but they're not what's holding people back from considering a free option over a several-hundred-dollar one. The user interface is what's crap. Sorry, GTK, it just is. Copy-pasting what I wrote a few months ago:
>Out of curiosity, I tried installing Gimp to see how much has changed (for the better?) since I last checked it out. The tool interface doesn't quite fit into its window by default so you have a tiny little scrollbar at the bottom that you have to scroll to see the full text. I resized it. After popping out a submenu, it once again didn't fit.
This is plain unacceptable. Yes, this is 99% there, it's a minor thing, it's probably thousands of man-hours to avoid a gazillion other bugs and issues and even get to this point. But it's not enough. A UI for such a tool, where you actually fiddle with it a lot, has to be perfect. Perfect on a technical level, perfect in a Apple-y "let's ensure that the empirically determined most-used features are shown first and less-used stuff doesn't clutter precious screen-space" sense that takes long and frustrating trial-and-error involving real-world feedback. You can't have a button that's 15 pixel larger than it has to be. You can't have a layout arrangement that wastes half a window because it's poorly aligned. You can't have spacing that's inconsistent enough to make you hesitate clicking an icon because you're not sure if it's connected to some other element of the interface.
Open source/free software needs a user interface push, but apparently that's not a sexy field to work on.
You really should prepare for a ton of bricks about to crush you down as people discover that you think adjustment layers, layer effects, or CMYK support is "5% of Photoshop's deep ocean of features" :)
There probably aren't that many xamarin studio users on mac and most of them would be developers anyway. If something looks out of place, developers are often oblivious to it (how long would it take you to spot a font out of place?) but artists are hyper-sensitive to it.
Photoshop, Illustrator, Lightroom, and non-Adobe tools like Affinity Designer all use portable, non-native UI code. That hasn't stopped artists from using them. I don't out-of-place UI is the reason why people avoid Gimp.
I wonder sometimes if the reason GIMP development doesn't surpass other options is simply not having enough developers, having a user base that is more art centered than programming centered, and having a somewhat bottlenecked development culture. These could just be perceptions. I am hoping that when the transition to GEGL is fully implemented, there will be an acceleration. Its hard to use it for serious work. The stable branch is still 8bit :/
I don't know, as someone who moved from GIMP to Photoshop a long time ago I never saw that as being the reason it was/is(in my opinion) inferior. It has plenty of features - more than enough. What it never had was as good of a user interface and user experience. It always felt clunky and awkward by comparison.
If I were to give them one additional project member it wouldn't be a developer. It would be a product owner who uses Photoshop daily.
> It would be a product owner who uses Photoshop daily.
But no-one sings praise to the Photoshop UI either, I've heard numerous complaints about it getting worse and worse all the time. It's a matter of people being used to PS and not willing to change.
There was a project earlier which had a Photoshop-clone UI for GIMP (called GimpShop or something), but it didn't magically solve all the issues. These days core GIMP has a single window interface available.
I've personally never had an issue with GIMP's UI after I grokked some of the basic concepts (e.g. "make selection and flood fill" - not "draw rectangle"). I see the lack of non-destructive editing and (historically) bad color management as a bigger issue.
I'm sure GIMP would accept UI-related contributions but the list of volunteers is short.
Admittedly I haven't used GIMP in a while, but the entire selection interface was awful last time I did. That's a very basic thing that was constantly annoying to me. Wether I can grok it or not really doesn't matter. Normal users don't want to have to grok things. It didn't feel intuitive, and as a result it only took a few hours of using Photoshop CS3 to never want to go back.
Here's the thing: "normal users" looking for a free-of-charge alternative to commercial apps are not the typical target audience of open source productivity tools. They're primarily targetted to scratch the authors' own itch, and secondarily to benefit anyone who finds it useful in the hopes of more contributions.
Average Joes (nor non-contributing professional artists/photographers) are typically not beneficial to these projects, at worst they are a hindrance: tons of help requests (in the bug tracker), low effort bug reports, requests for Windows/OSX binaries (without offering to help in maintenance), etc. You can find some ugly examples if you look into bug trackers / mailing lists of some of these projects.
We can only hope that a benevolent philanthropist comes by and drops a few million dollars in to getting full time, paid developers into GIMP, Blender, Inkscape and all the other open source productivity tools but until that happens it's a mostly volunteer effort and the contributors can choose what to focus on.
If Photoshop suits you, great. I've managed to do all my image editing in GIMP for the past 20 years and I'm very glad the project exists.
I too have managed to do lots of image editing in GIMP. That doesn't mean it was a pleasant experience.
I am not trying to tell the volunteers what to work on, but if we can't give honest product feedback to FOSS projects on the basis that they are volunteer efforts, then those projects will never succeed broadly. If you don't care about succeeding broadly that's fine, but I get the impression from gimp.org that they would like to.
This disregard for "normal users" that often exists in the FOSS community is so completely and utterly self-defeating. If you want FOSS to succeed you need projects to be successful in the marketplace. You need "normal users" to reach that scale.
> This disregard for "normal users" that often exists in the FOSS community is so completely and utterly self-defeating. If you want FOSS to succeed you need projects to be successful in the marketplace. You need "normal users" to reach that scale.
Yes, this is unfortunate but I don't see how it could change. I'm afraid that maintaining a scale big enough to include "normal users" and competing with commercial options would require more resources (read: money for full time development) than there are volunteers available. It's not just a matter of changing attitude.
The GIMP project has already exceeded the threshold of immortality and it's an invaluable tool, so I consider it a "success" regardless whether it's user friendly or competitive with commercial options.
Because they glibly brush it off, like the way when someone makes an honest point by giving you feedback that "gimp" is an offensive term that inhibits its adoption by "normal users" in professional and educational settings, GIMP team members like yourself actively seek to be offensive and attempt to turn it around, by accusing them of being "people who apparently seek to be offended", instead of acknowledging the well know dictionary definition of the term and addressing the problem.
The purpose of GIMP is to edit images, not fight political correctness or offend disabled people or reclaim offensive words.
The noun gimp is sometimes used to describe a limp or another physical disability, although it's an outdated and offensive word to use.
If you comment on someone's gimp, call the person a gimp, or say, "Look at that guy trying to gimp across the parking lot without his crutches," you've chosen a very objectionable way to talk about a disability. People will know what you mean if you use the word, but they're likely to be offended by it. Gimp was first used in the 1920's, possibly as a combination of limp and gammy, an old slang word for "bad."
First of all, my question wasn't even targeted at you.
Secondly, we don't brush off feedback. We listen to it and extract as much useful information as we can. If you personally can't provide any useful feedback, then there's little we can do.
Yes you most certainly do glibly brush off feedback -- you just did that to me right now by ignoring my question targeted at you, and you've done it to me multiple other times in this very discussion.
Telling somebody you don't do something that they just saw you do with their own eyes is called "gaslighting", which is what you are now doing.
And now you have another chance to do it again, and you've asked me for feedback, so let's see how that works out.
If you really sincerely don't brush off feedback, then please answer my questions about your understanding of the word "gimp", and address other people's feedback that I will quote with linked citations, instead of brushing off our honest feedback yet again.
Since you're asking me to provide feedback, then here it is:
Here are some specific question for you to either answer (which I would sincerely appreciate) or brush off again (which will yet again prove my point that you're guilty of glibly brushing off feedback and gaslighting):
1) Do you agree or disagree with the dictionary's definition of the word "gimp", or can you cite a legitimate dictionary that says that the primary definition of the word "gimp" is the name of an image editor?
2) Do you agree or disagree with the dictionary I cited that "gimp" is "an outdated and offensive word to use"? Provide citations that support your point, without making unsupported claims about what other people think.
3) What is the purpose of naming an image editor "GIMP", and stubbornly refusing to change it after many people over many years give you lots of feedback that it's offensive?
4) Is GIMP's primary mission to "reclaim" the word "gimp", or strike a blow against "political correctness", or is it merely intended to edit images? Is it the primary mission of GIMP users to re-educate the world about the meaning of the word "gimp", or are they mainly expected to use GIMP for editing images, instead of redefining words?
Here is a typical example of honest feedback met with a glib response that shows how GIMP team members and evangelists make audacious claims like "our approach is to redefine what "Gimp" means," while making false unsubstantiated claims about how the majority of the world understands the meaning of the word "gimp":
Sam Bagot, 2015-04-08 17:58:53 UTC (almost 2 years ago)
Gimp in private schools and educational institutions
Hi, my name is Sam and I have been involved in several projects ranging from art classes in public schools to local art communities around Austin. I am a Linux person and use Gimp for everything. I keep running across the same problem though. The name Gimp is offensive to people and suggests inferiority to Photoshop. In my experience, institutions would much rather pay for a professional product than teach a class to children involving gimps. Which is also inappropriately associated with BDSM sex. Either way it's looked at. A product called Gimp can't be used by a public or private school.
Is there any thought on salvaging the marketing effort and renaming this product so that it can be taken seriously by people and institutions? Also, a big barrier to entry adopting Linux for people is a solid graphic manipulator. The bad branding is causing many people in my art communities around Austin to avoid Linux in general.
What are the plans on renaming and success?
Simon Budig, 2015-04-11 10:54:13 UTC (almost 2 years ago)
Gimp in private schools and educational institutions
Basically our approach is to redefine what "Gimp" means. In the vast majority of the world "Gimp" refers to the Gnu Image Manipulation Program, the alternate interpretation is unknown to most people in the world.
Renaming Gimp would hurt our brand badly and is not an option.
If it is a problem in your local area (some areas in the US typically) that is unfortunate, but we need to rely on your powers to explain that we're helping in getting rid of the derogatory interpretation of the term "Gimp".
Bye,
Simon
5) How do you respond to this typical honest longstanding feedback (I can cite many other instances of this type of feedback, but let's focus on the previous recent one and this older one):
Roland Hordos, 2006-09-29 14:54:48 UTC (over 10 years ago)
Please Change the Derogatory Name
Hi,
While all other credible opensource projects are gaining ground in a professional IT setting, the GIMP is being held back because of the instant derogatory impact of the name. If someone who can champion this task reads this, please humble yourself for the sake of this amazing software that some of us are embarrassed to promote, or simply won't until the name is changed.
Thank you.
Roland Hordos
IT Manager
6) Do you stand by this glib brush-off of that feedback from GIMP team members: "On the techincal side Sven Neumann has explained he does not wish to see the project renamed and will not accept patches to make it easier for third parties to change the name." http://www.advogato.org/person/AlanHorkan/diary.html?start=1...
7) Do you agree with Sven Neumann's unsupported claim that there are "very few people" who have problems with the name, and his accusation that those people are "so narrow minded"? Do you accuse me personally of being narrow minded for having a problem with the name? http://www.mail-archive.com/gimp-developer%40lists.xcf.berke...
8) Do you have any proof or scientific surveys you can cite that support Sven Neumann's extraordinary claim that "For most people on this planet, GIMP doesn't have any special meaning." Because he makes unsupported claims that contradict all the dictionary definitions I can find, which all say "gimp" is offensive, and none of which make any mention of the GIMP image editor. http://www.gimpusers.com/forums/gimp-user/2965-please-change...
9) Who funded this worldwide survey of most people on the planet about the meaning of the word "gimp", where can I read it, and why didn't you put all that money into developing GIMP, listening to feedback from its users, fixing its bugs, improving its user interface, supporting its developers, and changing its name instead?
You asked for this feedback, and now you have it. I am really looking forward to seeing you take my honest feedback that you requested seriously, and addressing my questions this time around, instead of glibly brushing them off and gaslighting me yet again.
> Yes you most certainly do glibly brush off feedback
That's not feedback. That's repeating tired arguments ad nauseam to drive people mad.
> Here are some specific question for you to either answer (which I would sincerely appreciate) or brush off again
I'm not playing your little game, Don. I'm glad you have this much spare time, but I'm sorry to see that you make the worst possible use of it.
GIMP is GNU Image Manipulation Program. It's an acronym. That is all.
Do something useful with your time. Play with your kids. Make love to your wife. Read a good book. And when you have actual feedback about things that are important, like usability or features, do come back.
Do product owners really work in open source projects where developers aren't getting paid?
I know personally, as an developer and an open source contributor, I'm going to work on something which either scratches my own itch or something which interests me. I certainly wouldn't be spending my own time working on the roadmap of a product owner if it doesn't fall into one of the two categories anyways.
The same chicken-and-egg problem plagues all the open source creativity suites and other "professional" software (GIMP, Blender, Inkscape, etc): there aren't enough artists, photographers, etc using it and contributing to it to make it competitive, and there will be no new users as long as the development (with user friendliness in mind) is stagnant.
The pool of programming-capable professional artists isn't very large in the first place and I can't blame them for focusing on their jobs and deadlines instead of developing the software they use.
That said, I have no sympathy for people who complain about the issues but do not contribute in any way. Being rude and mean to the developers doesn't help anyone, go ahead and use the commercial alternatives and shut up.
Aaron, basically you are looking at a combination of factors:
— a huge momentum that Photoshop has accumulated over the decades;
— huge R&D and marketing budget at Adobe;
— whole businesses built around educating Adobe tools (think Envato et al.).
And the list goes on.
Which is why it doesn't make any sense whatsoever to "surpass other options". But it makes a hell of a sense to create a sensible sophisticated tool for a certain user base. Which is kinda what we do with GIMP, as much as time permits.
Thank you. I like most of them, most days:)
That really is correct. It isn't about being better than every other option is it? Its amazing how easy it is to fall back into the global stage competition thinking. I think its just that my inner Richard Stallman still points an accusing finger at me every time I fire up Photoshop:)
> having a user base that is more art centered than programming centered
Sorry but I think it's more likely the opposite and the user base is more developer centered than artist centered. How are devs supposed to understand how to move this app forward if no one even uses it to it's full potential.
Getting tired of technies pointing fingers at the artists when they fail to understand how to make great creative tools.
Even though I hear this quote ringing in my ear, and I can't seem to shake it, mainly because of who said it:
"Yet I think that a few programs, such as Adobe Photoshop, will always be superior to competitors like the Gimp—for some reason, I really don’t know why! I’m quite willing to pay good money for really good software, if I believe that it has been produced by the best programmers." [1]
[1] http://www.informit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=1193856