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?
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“GIMP?? Like the suit?”
“What suit?”
Then watch them squirm.The first time I heard the name I thought “Why would you admit, in the name, that your software is gimped?”
Naming stuff is a significant problem in the open-source community (not to say closed source has a monopoly on good names, bad names seems to be a thing these days).
Thing is if OSS wants to compete, having a meaningful name will go a long way to getting regular users in board.
Maybe get in the habit of calling it by it’s full name initially. Then it seems like an unfortunate acronym instead of a software made by perverts. Note I’m fairly certain most software is made by perverts, and I’m including myself in that group.
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what are you gonna do, ask for a refund?
It’s pronounced “JIMP” 😌
GIMP but pronounce it JIMP, like GIF
It’s funny, because I’m not a native speaker and Gimp means… well… this software. I only learned what it meant years later.
Same. I knew what gimp suit was much later after I got introduced to GIMP.
What does it mean?
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I don’t get it?
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From Wiktionary:
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A person who is lame due to a crippling of the legs or feet.
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(slang, derogatory) A name-calling word, generally for a person who is perceived to be inept, deficient or peculiar.
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(BDSM) A submissive dressed in a full-body suit of latex or a similar material.
I’m vaguely sure the first two meanings above appeared earlier.
Perhaps the name was taken as a nod to ‘geek’ and ‘dweeb’, which were slurs for programmers back before the profession became mainstream.Edit: apparently not: “The software was originally named the General Image Manipulation Program. Kimball and Mattis formed the acronym GIMP by adding the letter G to ‘-IMP,’ inspired by a reference to ‘the gimp’ in the 1994 film Pulp Fiction.”Somewhat relatedly, Torvalds called his versioning software ‘git’, which is also a derogatory term, a British-specific one at that. (And the original name of Linux was ‘Freax’.)
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Merriam has the definition I knew it by before I saw Pulp Fiction, which is a synonym for limp. I think I was also vaguely aware it was an offensive word for someone disabled.
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How did you learn it? Did you maybe grow up in an English speaking community
Yeah I’m a native speaker and read a ton as a kid, and then ended up being a lit major, so I guess my idea of what words are normal could be somewhat skewed. But I think that one I probably heard it from my dad.
Looks like the gimp usage peaked in the 1860s, at least in books.
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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.
I once searched for “gimp mask”, as I wanted to learn something about the masking features in the software. Well, as a non-native english speaker, I was quite amused about the results.
I just did, with and without safe search ON. The results were only about the GIMP we all know.
They OBV have never cared. But it’s probably one of the larger reasons it’s never taken off in business. Just requesting it in some places would get you an HR violation.
My company provides GIMP to its employees. Turns out they care more about paying zero than a silly name.
We’ve opened the doors to Blender.
TBF, there’s a pretty wide gap for professional art between PS and Gimp that go beyond knowing both interfaces. The actions, adjustment layers, hell down to just what happens when you paste a new layer. A lot of it, you CAN make Gimp do the same thing, but it takes many more steps and is often less precise.
I tried to see if I could convert my photographer wife over to it. Started learning her workflows, tried to translate it into Gimp. What she was doing was a LOT faster than I could sort and that’s if i spent shit tons of time bridging the gap with python
Things have changed in more recent versions of GIMP. Pasting layers is simple now and you can even drag and drop them between images. You can also now use any filter nondestructively, even which Photoshop can’t do.
also latex lol i always google things like “red colored text latex” and get pictures of people in latex suits
ASCII does not have Greek letters, so we bring this upon ourselves by misspelling: $LaTe\Chi$
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Why not rename it to Linux Image Manipulation Program?
Oh, wait…
Ok, then just Image Manipulation Program?
… oh shit.
Can this work?
- GLAM: GNU / Linux imAge Manipulation
- GLIDE: GNU/Linux Image DEvelopment
Or like Krita, no acronym whatsoever - just a cool name
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Just pronounce it “JIMP” and watch the .gif pronounciation debate light up once again!
The G stands for GNU so maybe it’s NIMP or IMP
The G in GNU is pronounced.
You mean something like “ga-new”?
EDIT: apparently yes: https://www.gnu.org/gnu/pronunciation.en.html
Somebody had a cosmetic fork at one point called Glimpse.
The GIMP devs are downright fucking fascistic about never ever changing the name. Just suggesting it will get you unholy hellflame.
