Honest to gods, this conversation happened today, and it may have cost me a job opportunity. The customer was super impressed with my menu design and animation, and wanted to know who we got it from. When I said I did it, their face lit up! Too bad as soon as i said GIMP, they weren’t interested anymore. Has anyone else experienced this? What do you say in similar situations?
Anyone who tried to bring GIMP into nonprofits and schools dealt with this problem. I cannot explain how many uncomfortable conversations I had with non-technical people.
And the defenders will continue to say GIMP’s name is fine and still be shocked of the low adoption rate.
Maybe in America? I can tell you in most of the world, nobody would even think to give a fuck about the name, it doesn’t mean anything. The word “gimp” isn’t even popular enough.
This sounds like some weird copium: surely the app would take off and replace Photoshop long ago, if they just changed that damn name! There was one fork that thought that, with a different name, died shortly after creation. Because in reality nobody cares about the name.
I’m literally explaining to you the challenges I’ve had.
In many schools, I brought libre office and ubuntu into the classroom. I taught a whole generation of kids about open source.
Rather than recognizing that maybe there’s something off here, you shrug and say nobody really cares.
You’re part of the problem.
So what’s off there? What are the challenges you had? When one searches “gimp” in any search engine, they only get search results for the image editor. One has to really go out of their way to look into some dictionary to find out the supposed meanings, and even a dictionary does not mention that it’s a slur or anything, unless it’s Urban Dictionary. Which of the meanings is supposed to be the bad one that’s brought up?
And in any case, what would you realistically expect the GIMP project to do? The software is known worldwide for the past 30 years and the name is not a problem in the slightest in any of the non-anglophone countries. Throwing off their name and branding could be a project suicide, the rebrands are risky and I’d say don’t go too well that often.
Well, did you know there was a fork of gimp called glimpse, that was created because of that name?
Well… its abandoned now… So… apparently the name didn’t make it more popular.
[Edit: removed AI written articles about glimpse.]
https://web.archive.org/web/20191226042940/https://glimpse-editor.org/about/
https://web.archive.org/web/20230325235741/https://github.com/glimpse-editor
https://web.archive.org/web/20230325235732mp_/https://glimpse-editor.org/posts/a-project-on-hiatus/
I’d say it says more about the listener in that situation. GIMP is a great name for a GNU Image Manipulation Program, just like Fanny Pack perfectly describes a bag worn around the waist but you’d be surprised the looks you get in the UK for not calling it a “Bum Bag” instead.
The people the immediately assume it must have to do with sexual fetishes (or make that connection) just aren’t as familiar with what the rest of the world has been up to.