Re: [Gimp-developer] Targeted audience of GIMP?

[peter sikking <peter mmiworks net>]

gfxuser wrote:

>> This would be tricky. People can use professional workflows and not be
>> paid for the work they do.
> In German we have the idiom of 'unprofitable art' and unfortunately this says a lot about payment for creatives for long ;-(  It's understandable, that they'd like to have an affordable tool.

I have updated the briefing to deal with the ‘professionals’ chestnut.
‘It is more useful to define that GIMP is for intense use.’

that gets us a lot further.

I see from the last sentence above that also a sentence or two needs
to be added about GIMP not being a zero-cost copy/replacement of
an expensive piece of commercial software.

correct me if I am wrong, but GIMP being ‘free as in beer’ is a side
effect of GIMP being ‘free as in speech,’ which is the open source
spirit why contributors contribute.

> Why is painting from scratch not a top level part of the product vision? Are we going to miss someone? AFAIK there are already many other (semi-)professional affordable photo tools for Linux (RawTherapee, Darktable, Digikam, Photivo?, AfterShot, Lightzone etc.) but there seem to be much less high-end painting apps (MyPaint, Krita?, Pinta?).


having been the moderator at both the vision sessions of GIMP
and Krita, I know how very, very different both teams define
what painting means for them. I also can say that the way Krita
means painting is not reconcilable in one application
with the way that GIMP means that one of our top goals is
‘high-end photo manipulation.’

the painting system in GIMP can be made fantastically powerful,
I believe some people are working on that, and it will have the
secondary effect that painting from scratch in GIMP is pretty
damn good. but all the decisions about the painting system must
take into account that it is simply part of the image manipulation
goals of GIMP. painting is a means, not and end.

I am happy there is Krita (see their vision on their front web page),
and MyPaint and more. they can kick ass in painting from scratch.

    --ps

        founder + principal interaction architect
            man + machine interface works

        http://blog.mmiworks.net: on interaction architecture