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Interview with Øyvind Kolås, GIMP developer (2017)

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Re: Interview with Øyvind Kolås, GIMP developer (2017)

#61

Post by lynndotpy »

mikolajw wrote: post #44
lynndotpy wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the name for this fallacy, "We should all start being adults"? Everyone who is an adult can understand that names matter, especially ones intentionally chosen to cause offense or a ruckus. First, it doesn't matter how much you or I or the commentator above us changes to "be adults". Only the saddest and most lonesome people will be the sole decisionmaker in every context they exist in. Sometimes, you exist in…

There are over 7000 languages in the world, around half of them dying or having already died due to linguistic domination, in large part English, each with its own set of culturally sensitive words. To follow the above mode of reasoning without advantaging one or few languages, you would have to change an enormous amount of words in all languages, if not basically all. This is obviously not feasible. If GIMP was a di…

> And to enforce tolerance, indeed it may be needed to view those who fail at this as childish.

No, it's not necessary to denigrate other people under the belief you can police others by proxy.

"Is this derogatory or offensive?" is a basic localization question that is constantly asked in many languages. Yes, including Arabic.

I generally agree about the evils of linguistic imperialism. But I'm describing the world I live in, not the one I want to create.

But that's beside the point. "Linguistic imperialism" is the wrong lens to use here to defend the name. GIMP is not a sordophone, it's the opposite.

GIMP was named by American-born English speakers with the intent to have an edgy name. GIMP was chosen in reference to the full-body sex garment, because they were college kids and that's funny when you're 23.

The intent was offense. It worked well. It's no surprise that GIMP is only well-adopted where the word doesn't carry its offensive meaning.

Re: Interview with Øyvind Kolås, GIMP developer (2017)

#62

Post by lynndotpy »

smallstepforman wrote: post #52

I must be the only GIMP user that has never complained about the UX. But I have never used Photoshop so I’m not fighting muscle memory.

I think it might be muscle memory. I started using GIMP in 2005 or so before the single window mode, and my muscle memory is tailor-fit to it. It felt like an extension of myself.

With GIMP 3, there are a lot of improvements! But it also breaks my muscle memory a lot. GIMP 3 is objectively better, but I find myself opening 2.10 regularly.

Re: Interview with Øyvind Kolås, GIMP developer (2017)

#63

Post by lynndotpy »

iamnothere wrote: post #41

I don’t often do much with image editing, so GIMP has been perfectly adequate for me for decades. I’ve never rented a copy of Photoshop and don’t care about it. I’ve noticed small but consistent improvements over the years. People who complain about the UX should just go use Photoshop. It’s fine. Layers work well, retouching and filters are easy. I don’t really understand the complaints. I’m very glad GIMP exists, an…

The people who want GIMP to change its name are the people who use GIMP, love GIMP, and have difficulties using GIMP in contexts like education or employment because of its name. It's a simple fact that the name "GIMP" caused problems. It's a shame.

But there's not much use in changing the name now, you can't get that lost time back. GIMP isn't the only FOSS image editor available anymore. There are myriad of Photoshop competitors in the subscription, freeware, and FOSS spaces.

I love GIMP and I'm still using it because I've got decades of muscle memory. But I also love Krita and if I need to edit something on a work computer, I'll just use that.

Re: Interview with Øyvind Kolås, GIMP developer (2017)

#65

Post by tsumnia »

smallstepforman wrote: post #52

I must be the only GIMP user that has never complained about the UX. But I have never used Photoshop so I’m not fighting muscle memory.

I started with GIMP and still pull it up first before worrying about Photoshop. For me, the "fighting muscle memory" comes from "huh, GIMP does it like this..."

Re: Interview with Øyvind Kolås, GIMP developer (2017)

#66

Post by Charon77 »

cmyk_student wrote: post #43
b112 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My biggest beef is the UI constantly goes through massive changes at each release. Options moved, mysterious new configs, literally it is as if you're using an entirely new piece of software every few years. For those of you who daily drive GIMP, well you'll be up to speed quickly. For those of us that use it once a month or so, for a day, it quickly becomes exceptionally annoying. I'm happy if the UI isn't the best.…

It's funny to hear that, because we get a large number of complaints that we haven't changed GIMP's interface at all from 2.10 to 3.0 and that's why we're "failing". We try to be respectful of existing users (and again, we get lots of complaints that doing so "holds GIMP back"). If you have some examples of massive changes you've dealt with (and from what version to what version), I'm happy to look into them further.

I think if Blender can do UI change, GIMP should too.

Re: Interview with Øyvind Kolås, GIMP developer (2017)

#67

Post by Kuraj »

tadfisher wrote: post #36
hungryhobbit wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love the contrast between this and one of the next comments: >In my honest opinion, GIMP is a horrific piece of software. Both are absolutely true! GIMP has been, for many years, the best free graphics software available. At the same time, it's so horribly anti-user (and anti-usability) that if it wasn't free software, the company behind it would have gone bankrupt a long time ago.

"Anti-user' and "anti-usability" are far too harsh. Outdated, yes. A product of 1990s-era UX design, absolutely. But every changelog has some mention of a UX improvement, and actually using the product at version 3.0 is, dare I say, pretty enjoyable once you unlearn things and pretend it's Photoshop 6.0. Single-window mode by default helps a ton . I have used far worse software from commercial outfits. You would not…

Don't sleep on the command palette (`/`). It's a really useful tool when even if you don't know _where_ things are, you still know what they are called.

Re: Interview with Øyvind Kolås, GIMP developer (2017)

#68

Post by nunobrito »

tadfisher wrote: post #36
hungryhobbit wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love the contrast between this and one of the next comments: >In my honest opinion, GIMP is a horrific piece of software. Both are absolutely true! GIMP has been, for many years, the best free graphics software available. At the same time, it's so horribly anti-user (and anti-usability) that if it wasn't free software, the company behind it would have gone bankrupt a long time ago.

"Anti-user' and "anti-usability" are far too harsh. Outdated, yes. A product of 1990s-era UX design, absolutely. But every changelog has some mention of a UX improvement, and actually using the product at version 3.0 is, dare I say, pretty enjoyable once you unlearn things and pretend it's Photoshop 6.0. Single-window mode by default helps a ton . I have used far worse software from commercial outfits. You would not…

I've been here since the 90s.

GIMP UI was always bad whereas Paintshop Pro (don't if you remember) and later Paint.NET each had a UI that you'd be up and using without thinking twice.

Re: Interview with Øyvind Kolås, GIMP developer (2017)

#69

Post by DonHopkins »

cmyk_student wrote: post #43
b112 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My biggest beef is the UI constantly goes through massive changes at each release. Options moved, mysterious new configs, literally it is as if you're using an entirely new piece of software every few years. For those of you who daily drive GIMP, well you'll be up to speed quickly. For those of us that use it once a month or so, for a day, it quickly becomes exceptionally annoying. I'm happy if the UI isn't the best.…

It's funny to hear that, because we get a large number of complaints that we haven't changed GIMP's interface at all from 2.10 to 3.0 and that's why we're "failing". We try to be respectful of existing users (and again, we get lots of complaints that doing so "holds GIMP back"). If you have some examples of massive changes you've dealt with (and from what version to what version), I'm happy to look into them further.

Please finally implement pie menus, like Blender has had for many years. There have been various pie menu implementations for GTK for decades, and it's always been easy to roll your own if you suffer from NIH so much that you refuse to look at or use anything anyone else has ever done.

I believe GIMP's deep seated NIH syndrome, and refusal to look at or acknowledge anything else, and lack of respect for users' requests and usability itself, are GIMP's actual deep seated problems (which the Blender project so successfully doesn't self-sabotage itself with), and I have no reason to believe it's ever going to change, because it's so deeply baked into the GIMP "culture", if you can call it that.

Photoshop doesn't have pie menus, so if you must, think of pie menus as a way to be even less like Photoshop, if that is what mission drives you instead of usability. But I think your design goals and motivations should focus more on usability and supporting users than simply spiting Photoshop.

But once you finally get tired of spiting Photoshop at the expense of usability, then why don't you finally declare Mission Accomplished, and move on to trying for once to be as good as Blender's user interface and responsiveness to user's needs?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43491589

>One example is that Blender embraced the use of pie menus, and Gimp ignored them. The Gimp team is just not open to outside ideas, and gets really annoyed when users of other tools request features from those tools that Gimp refuses to support, and reacts by digging in deeper and clinging to their bad design decisions out of frustration and spite. A really sad culture of NIH and 4Q2.

>In general and with many other things, Gimp could have been so much better and easier to use, but they systematically and spitefully ignored their user's needs and requests about so many things, while Blender did just the opposite, listened to users and improve the user interface and mouse bindings, instead of being stubborn and parochial about it. [...]

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38236366

>[...] All of these ideas could be applied to Gimp too, of course, but I've found the Blender developers to be much more open to entertaining other people's ideas and contributions about user interface design than the Gimp developers, who have been historically NIH-limited and stubborn (especially about changing the name to something less offensive to the general public). At least Blender already supports pie menus well, and changed the default mouse bindings in response to user demand, and has made huge strides in usability lately. At this point I think it would be much easier to just add a great image editor to Blender, integrated with its video editor, than try to change the minds of the Gimp developers. [...]

Re: Interview with Øyvind Kolås, GIMP developer (2017)

#70

Post by mikolajw »

lynndotpy wrote: post #61
mikolajw wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are over 7000 languages in the world, around half of them dying or having already died due to linguistic domination, in large part English, each with its own set of culturally sensitive words. To follow the above mode of reasoning without advantaging one or few languages, you would have to change an enormous amount of words in all languages, if not basically all. This is obviously not feasible. If GIMP was a di…

> And to enforce tolerance, indeed it may be needed to view those who fail at this as childish. No, it's not necessary to denigrate other people under the belief you can police others by proxy. "Is this derogatory or offensive?" is a basic localization question that is constantly asked in many languages. Yes, including Arabic. I generally agree about the evils of linguistic imperialism. But I'm describing the world I…

>"Is this derogatory or offensive?" is a basic localization question that is constantly asked in many languages. Yes, including Arabic.

While it is pragmatic to chose new names to be appealing to members of dominant societies (I do that too), it is problematic when dominant groups view themselves as entitled to that, which is the case here, and which is why we have this discussion.

>The intent was offense.

First, I am not aware of any evidence that there was an intent to offend. The only source for etymology I know here is an old interview with one of the original developers where he said that he blended the words GNU and Image Manipulation Program, and soon afterwards realized that he heard that word before in a film. There was no suggestion there that he wanted to upset others.

And even if the name was really intended to be edgy, the current developers, who have inherited the codebase from the original authors over two decades ago, view it differently and dissasociate themselves from that etymology in the FAQ. This should be sufficient to close this line of reasoning.

Finally, regarding adoption: I can't tell for sure what it is like for graphics editors, but I haven't ever seen anyone not using SRAM memory and OSRAM lightbulbs in Poland because their names are sordophonic to Polish verbs about defecation (in fact, because of that OSRAM is the only lightbulb brand that I can name from memory). Or even anyone complaining about that, apart from being amused. And I wouldn't dare to demand for these names to change just because they have dirty associations in my language when read a certain way.

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