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Interview with Øyvind Kolås, GIMP developer (2017)
11–20 of 86 posts
Re: Interview with Øyvind Kolås, GIMP developer (2017)
#12[flagged]
If the dev team had a nickel for every time someone complained about the name, there would have enough money by now to fund the development of a UI revamp.
Now if they had a nickel for everytime someone complained about the bad UI...
Re: Interview with Øyvind Kolås, GIMP developer (2017)
#13Earlier quoted context omitted.
No need to be confused, the opening paragraphs explain the discrepancy
> Unfortunately, the rest of the interviews from that event have never seen the light of day - until now! Not really -- It invites speculation as to why they were not published for 9 years. And, are the words spoken a decade ago still valid?
Sure, but it explains the dates. Which is all that you originality highlighted as your confusion. Perhaps you can query them directly about your other curiosities?
I think the interview is interesting regardless if some of the details within are dated or not.
Re: Interview with Øyvind Kolås, GIMP developer (2017)
#14Maybe it's the GIMP developer who should be interviewing someone who can build a decent UI and actually understands UX.
Re: Interview with Øyvind Kolås, GIMP developer (2017)
#15[flagged]
It's my experience that every professional and educational setting I've tried to use the GIMP in has seen the name as a roadblock and had it swiftly rejected.
It's really a shame they were steadfast in that one baffling decision. It was so self-destructive to the project. I wonder what would have happened if they stayed with their original name IMP, or found a different Pulp Fiction reference to make.
Re: Interview with Øyvind Kolås, GIMP developer (2017)
#16[flagged]
> You live in a society, and as a result you have to do a little bit of homework on names, and what they mean, and how they are percieved by the outside world.
Amem
If there's one point where OSS stands like a sore thumb (derogatory) is in everything that makes it welcoming to general users
Usability. Focus. Heck, even this strawberry of a low hanging fruit like the name cannot be solved by a nerd committee apparently.
Then honestly you can't complain when people don't use your sw
Re: Interview with Øyvind Kolås, GIMP developer (2017)
#17[flagged]
I grew up as a native English speaker in an English country, and had to look up what gimp means. Should the name be changed? Yes. On the other hand, I have never encountered the word outside of the context of the image editing program. That is unusual, even for an offensive term. It leaves me with the feeling that someone dug up an obscure piece of slang in order to paint the project in a negative light. (I've been using open source for long enough to know that painting open source in a negative light was a thing. For example: it used to be common to paint supporters of open source as Communist, which is treasonous in some circles.)
Re: Interview with Øyvind Kolås, GIMP developer (2017)
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
No need to be confused, the opening paragraphs explain the discrepancy
> Unfortunately, the rest of the interviews from that event have never seen the light of day - until now! Not really -- It invites speculation as to why they were not published for 9 years. And, are the words spoken a decade ago still valid?
They weren't published because the person who interviewed everyone is now the project maintainer, and ran out of time to do transcriptions. :)
I volunteered to help with transcription, so I was given several audio recordings and started working on them. The first "resurfaced" one was Simon Budig: https://www.gimp.org/news/2025/11/01/simon-budig-interview-w...
There's about 4 more from another event which I'll be working on between coding and other things. There's definitely some material that's a bit dated (for instance, the comment about non-destructive editing), but I think it's still interesting insight into development.
Re: Interview with Øyvind Kolås, GIMP developer (2017)
#19Maybe it's the GIMP developer who should be interviewing someone who can build a decent UI and actually understands UX.
We do now have a UX repo to ask for user UX/UI reports and feedback - anyone can contribute, no coding required: https://gitlab.gnome.org/Teams/GIMP/Design/gimp-ux/-/issues
Our release posts now regularly feature a UX/UI section where we highlight the work being done. We've implemented a lot of low-hanging fruit and localized fixes, while we continue to grow our design volunteer group and build larger designs.
Re: Interview with Øyvind Kolås, GIMP developer (2017)
#20GimpKrita would be perfect