this post was submitted on 20 Aug 2024
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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 😁
Also it's specifically named as a reference to the gimp from pulp fiction as it originally came out around the same.
It's fine for a hobby project but GIMP is well past that now and it's a really bad look in a professional environment.
You don't need to be into BDSM to know the term gimp suit. I've seen it referred to in media plenty of times before. I think it's less common now, but it's likely the first thought of many people who hear the name. That or the offensive term for a disabled person, which is not any better.
Yes, I know it stands for GNU Image Manipulation Software.
People in general don't know that.
When they hear gimp, they think of a fetishist in a gimp suit, or a slur for a person with a severe disability.
Both are bad. I also wouldn't have my software share a name, even as an acronym, with other slurs or fetish stuff.
Imagine you're a manager high up in a company. Someone comes to you and says "sir, I really think we should be using PAKI instead of [proprietary software alternative]", and have you considered PISSPLAY instead of [proprietary software alternative]?"
You wouldn't even look into it. You'd reject it outright. Or at least most would.
Again, it's the GIMP team's right to name it how they want. But the name is dumb, puts people off, stifles investment opportunity, and makes the whole project look like a joke at a cursory glance.
Wow, you pulled some pup stuff, nice
Not everyone is an emglish speaker so not everyone know what gimp means.
The name isn't the problem, it's that gimp is hard to use and has a weird UI
The name is definitely a problem.
They'd be much more likely to have adoption in the industry, increased development, more donations if they had a name that companies and governments aren't driven away by.
I know some people in the Linux world think branding doesn't matter, but it absolutely does.
I didn't say branding isn't important I'm saying that out of 8 billion people only like less than 1 billion has this issue. A lot of people, even in government positions of various countries, don't speak english (shocker I know), therefore they probably don't know what else gimp could mean, yet they still don't use that software, because it doesn't advertise itself and because it honestly isn't quite as good as other software.