Re: [Gimp-developer] Gimp in private schools and educational institutions

[Nathan Summers <rockwalrus gmail com>]

Grr, when did GMail change the default from reply-to-list to reply-to-author?

On Tue, Apr 28, 2015 at 4:34 AM, Alexandre Prokoudine
<alexandre prokoudine gmail com> wrote:
> 28 апр. 2015 г. 8:22 пользователь "Sam Bagot" написал:
> > Renames have worked in the past as I see it and for the most part, as I'm
> > sure you've heard people consider before, a product named gimp can't
> > succeed against a product named professionally like PhotoShop.
>
> We do not make GIMP to compete against Photoshop.
>
> GIMP _is_ used at schools. Also, USA is not the only country in the world.
> Not even the largest one out there.

So our target audience is non-English speaking photographic
professionals that don't already like Photoshop?  I just don't see
that as a very big niche.

> Furthermore, I suggest you exercise nastyness elsewhere. This is a mailing
> list for discussing development of GIMP.

There's nothing nasty about what he said.  The name of the program
actually is a serious impediment to the development of GIMP, and if
it's not to be discussed here, then where?  Sam makes several
excellent points about why GIMP doesn't get the kind of professional
contributions that other projects of similar stature such as the Linux
kernel or Firefox, and I think there's a lot of truth to what he says.

You can say that you don't care about what GIMP means in English out
of some egalitarian principal that all languages should be treated
equally, but as a practical matter that means that you're putting a
huge barrier to developing in place for the largest part of the
software industry GDP.  That has consequences.  For example, I
wouldn't have wanted my name associated with something called "GIMP"
if I had known what the word meant when I started contributing to it.
I highly doubt I'm the only one.  Are you sure it's a good idea to
shut out contributions from all but the most naive and the most
calloused of the English-speaking world?

I personally consider the "we can get people to overlook the
connotations of the name" idea as a failed hypothesis at this point.
I'm not sure how aware the non-native-English speakers are of how far
the name is outside of the Overton Window, but I can assure you it's
not even close.  It's not worth the effort to try to make it socially
acceptable.  You can choose to ignore that fact, but you can't deny
that it has a very large influence on the pace of development.

Rockwalrus