GIMP 3.0 has been more than one decade in the making as the port from GTK2 to GTK3, also transitioning away from Python 2 to Python 3 support, and a wealth of other improvements from the UI to lower down into enhancing this open-source Photoshop alternative.
The GIMP project announced on X/Twitter today that they have entered the string freeze for this much anticipated release.
GIMP 2.99.99.1.5-final-reallyfinal-rc64-proper
That’s great! Now if only they’d stop thinking disability is funny, they might have a program worth using!
I’ve heard the term used reffering the fetish about 3000x more than I’ve heard it used referring to a disability
Even if that’s the case, that still makes it an immature name for what should be a serious project, because I doubt they’ve ever seriously engaged with the concept outside of them naming their project that, hey that’s an idea!
Like, I don’t mind fun. But as someone into kink too, the name of a project shouldn’t invoke anything to do with either ableism or BDSM, especially since kink is not understood by most people correctly, unless a project is related to kink in some way, or ableism (which I’m going to seriously be suspicious of your project and motivations unless you’re disabled and are reclaiming it) it’s still a very bad name that doesn’t really explain anything about it at a glance/first hearing it.
Should WINE change its name since it can invoke imagery of debauchery and alcoholism? Or are we going to leave that one out of this idea of sanitizing names.
I don’t fly on planes because the automatic voice system on the cockpit says “retard”
Some people are so addicted to anger that they’ll shoot themselves in the foot just so they’ll have something to complain about.
“The gimp” is a character from Pulp Fiction. You’re imagining things and refusing to use a powerful tool in response to that imagined slight.
Nobody was angry. Also, words have multiple uses. Just because it was used in Pulp Fiction in the BDSM context does not mean it doesn’t carry the ableist definition.
What are you trying to prove here? They were asked to change it because it’s ableist and they said no because it’s funny. Giving me a definition does not refute that.
Do you have evidence of that? That’s not what I saw: https://www.gimp.org/docs/userfaq.html#i-dont-like-the-name-gimp-will-you-change-it
I don’t like the name GIMP. Will you change it?
With all due respect, no. We’ve been using the name GIMP for more than 20 years and it’s widely known. The name was originally (and remains) an acronym; although the word “gimp” can be used offensively in some cultures, that is not our intent. On top of that, we feel that in the long run, sterilization of language will do more harm than good. GIMP has been quite popular for a long time in search engine results compared to the use of the word “gimp”. So we think we are on the right track to make a positive change and make “gimp” something people actually feel good about. Especially if we add all the features we’ve been meaning to implement and fix the user interface. Finally, if you still have strong feelings about the name “GIMP”, you should feel free to promote the use of the long form GNU Image Manipulation Program or exercise your software freedom to fork and rebrand GIMP.
This seems like a good official message to have, and personally I think they are making the right call. As someone in my early 20s, I can say that at least in the area I grew up (pacific north west of USA) “gimp” as a derogatory term is not widely used or known among my peers. In fact it didn’t even occur to me that I knew a second usage for the word until I read a comment on reddit a few years ago. My response then was “Oh yeah I guess I’ve heard that word used in that way before, maybe in a movie?”, and to be honest I feel the same way now. I believe “gimp is on its way out as a term to put down others, and I’m much more familiar with the term GIMP in reference to the useful program that this post is about.
100%
Most people here (who didn’t grow up in the US 50+ years ago) wouldn’t give negative connotations to the software’s name. I’m on the side that it is well divorced of an ableist meaning but that’s where the disagreement lies and some people are making a big fuss over.
Should we stop using words like taser and amok as well for having historically racist associations despite being divorces of those meaning? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Swift_and_His_Electric_Rifle
Our language is littered with more “land mines” that we realize if we want to make land mines out of them.
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I think they are leaving out the part where they called it “The GIMP” in the 90s. They clearly chose the name to be edgy, and they are now trying to justify it after the fact. Complaining about the “sterilization” of language is just out of touch and leaves out the fact that if they stopped using the word, it might just completely fall out of use.
The first public version of “The GIMP” was released in 1995.
Pulp fiction, with a character called “The Gimp” was released in 1994.
I’m pretty sure it’s not ableist, just a movie reference.That is probably where they got it, but the word definitely had multiple uses at the time. It may not have been explicitly ableist, but it is and was an ableist word. It also invalidates their claim that they are trying to reclaim usage. Again, they named it that because they thought it was funny, not some grand scheme.
This is just post-hoc justification, coupled with “PC culture is censorship” type of bullshit.
although the word “gimp” can be used offensively in some cultures, that is not our intent
Intent is irrelevant. In this case, if you didn’t mean to offend, then you apologize and then change the fucking name. You don’t get to say “sorry you were offended, but I don’t care” and still expect people to take you seriously. Change “gimp” in that sentence to any other slur and try to make that same kind of justification.
I does not matter if the name was
- based on a Pulp Fiction character because the devs thought it was funny
- was a genuine reference to kink culture
- an abelist slur
Who tf thinks a piece of software should be named after any of that? It’s 1) offensive 2) wildly unprofessional and 3) a massive barrier to adoption.
The devs have the mentality of “edgy” 14 yo teen boys, have refused to ever grow the fuck up, and just throw tantrums whenever anyone tries to have a rational conversation with them about it
It’s too bad that GLIMPSE fork never took off.
Yeah. It could have done if some not very nice people hadn’t have attacked them constantly just because they didn’t like what they were trying to do.
Yeah, was thinking it be quite a cool move to rename it to something nice with the big 3.0 release …
Welp, Krita does everything I need (and more) so I’ll keep using that.
That would have been a good idea, but alas they think they have good reasons for not doing so. Which, they don’t as their argument isn’t really sound, but people have their strongly held convictions even if they’re incorrect especially when it comes to foss projects, lol.
Glad you have something else good to use!
Even if their UI/UX weren’t an atrocity that belongs at The Hague, the cruelty of their devs actively pushes me away from having any desire to give them another shot
green is my pepper 🫑
Awesome! I’m super excited about 3.0 :D
I’m a casual GIMP user. What are the key benefits of v3?
It’s at least 1 better than v2.
But why not just make 2 louder?
GTK 2 has been EoL since 2020 (GTK 3 released in 2011). GIMP 3 marks the completion of the GTK 3 port, which by itself offers:
- Moving to an actively supported version of GTK (and future migrations will be easier because the difference between 3 and 4 is a lot less than the difference between 2 and 3)
- Better graphics tablet support
- Better handling of HiPPI displays
- Better Wayland support
- Should also mean that they finished refactoring the code, thus making it easier to implement new features.
And on that last point, I would say that the biggest benefit overall with the release of GIMP 3 is that we’ll finally, finally start seeing serious work on implementing non-destructive editing; I’ve read that some of the preliminary work is going to be shipping with the 3.0 release.
The biggest thing is probably non-destructive editing, so you can do stuff like apply filters without them changing the underlying image. Gtk3 should add better support for tablets and wayland. There’s also better layer tools and font support. A lot of it was on the backend, which should eventually allow for using other color spaces like cmyk natively.
Isn’t the latest version of gtk gtk4?
They’ve been working on porting it since back in 2012, and didn’t want to redo a bunch of the porting work before they even released it.
I get the sentiment, but now they’re doing a whole lot of extra work only to be a version behind
That sounds very frustrating!
I don’t want to answer a specific user about the name connotations but, isn’t the load of a word dependant of the intention? My friends and I call each other whores. And conversely one can use “woman” as a very badly loaded vocative.
Yes and no.
Reclaiming a word can only be done by those who are affected by it negatively and it should always be used in a positive way by people attempting reclaiming, never negatively. I’ve seen no evidence of them doing this or of them ever being affected by that word negatively personally.
Also intent is not magical, it doesn’t absolve people of the hurt they cause by doing something, all it might do is explain they weren’t trying to be cruel, however that doesn’t magically absolve anyone of anything and if they carry on doing it regardless of hurting someone etc, then they show their intent was really not what they claim it was.
Man I love GIMP, it holds such a special place in my heart since I discovered it as a kid in the late aughts. There was this podcast Meet the GIMP I loved and watched on my iPod. All these years and many seizures later and I still remember the host and his voice… Rolf Steinhort I think.
