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.
can they unfreeze the name?
They won’t. It’s an old topic and they are clear about not changing the name. Anyone having a problem can fork and rename the project. But it seems not to be a big issue that nobody wants to do it.
I believe that there is a project that aims to do just this but I can’t remember its name.
If you can’t remember the name, it was probably not a good rename. “Glimpse” was the name, as the other user noted. ;-) On a more serious note, I actually liked the name Glimpse. But they did more than just renaming the project. They had plans to make it very different from Gimp too. So it probably died because of being too ambitious.
I know people like it, but I agree.
And as silly as it sounds, I think the name is a big part of why businesses haven’t ever wanted to touch the project or invest in it.
Imagine telling your average upper management guy or board member that you want your workers to use software called gimp. They’re probably not gonna want to hear you out.
Anecdotally I know of a local NHS practice that refused to use GIMP, and was even sceptical of other subsequent suggestions of other FOSS due to the terrible impression they got from the GIMP name during a pitch to use more FOSS.
I get it’s their identity, their project. Nobody has the right to dictate the name but them. But it’s also fair to point out that they probably shot themselves in the foot by giving their software a juvenile and weirdly fetishy name.
Businesses around the world, who have no idea what a few people use the term gimp to mean, are no different. The name makes no difference to them. To most people around the world, gimp means that photo editor.
Why? Everyone knows what gimp is at this point
I think you’re vastly overestimating how many people know about a random FOSS image editor. Gimp is not a household name.
When most people hear the word “gimp”, they likely have something akin to this in mind (not an image editor):
IMO, that hinders adoption and certainly hinders financial support. It’s an amusing name, granted, but it’s not a good one if you wish to be taken seriously.
TBF, “gimp” has many negative connotations, including as an ableist slur against the physically impaired.
I have no idea what you are talking about.
When I saw this image my first thought was “WTF?” I have seen people complain about the name before but when I try to look up gimp to see what they are talking about I just get gimp the software. What even is that image?
Edit:
I tried looking it up on Wikipedia and there was this page
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bondage_suit
That actually makes more sense although I’m pretty sure most people aren’t into BDSM. Gimp stands for gnu image manipulation program so it has nothing to do with whatever this is.
Tell me you haven’t watched Pulp fiction without telling me you haven’t watched Pulp fiction 😁