[Gimp-developer] Alexandre Prokoudine attacks on GIMP critics around the Web

[Niccolo Brogi <nkkollaw gmail com>]

Hello.

TLDR:
Alexandre attacks GIMP critics around the internet implying that he's a
developer of GIMP and represents GIMP, using language and doing things that
are completely inappropriate for his (self-proclaimed?) role, which makes
the whole GIMP team look like crap for no reason.

FULL:

A little bit of a backstory (which you can skip if in a hurry): I've had a
couple of unpleasant exchanges with Alexandre. Our latest exchange is
https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/9vneh8/gimp_2108_released/e9doqjq
from the Reddit thread at
https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/9vneh8/gimp_2108_released/. While
it started innocently enough, it quickly turned nasty. What triggered
Alexandre was my opinion that scheduled releases are better than random
ones, because people like IT administrators might have to upgrade hundreds
of computers, and being able to plan for that is nice. I think he
understood I claimed the GIMP development team could and should refactor
GIMP to GTK3 and release in 6 months (which I never said). Regardless,
instead of saying "ah, no GIMP is better with rolling release because, bla
bla bla..." he started attacking me personally--basically saying that I had
no right to say that because I'm not a GIMP developer (but neither is he
more on that later). A missed opportunity to learn something: just because
of his tone, the discussion deviated from that and got uncivil, which is
what I observed always happens with him when he exchanges ideas with people
that have unapproved opinions.

I tend to be blunt and ignore political correctness. Add that to perhaps
getting passionate or even emotional about stuff, and to be honest
sometimes I do get harsh replies and have to rephrase things I didn't say
nicely enough. However, exchanges with Alexandre are a totally different
beast.

Why? A while after posting the comments I talked about above I started
getting PMs of "solidarity" from other users that Alexandre attacked around
Reddit. For instance, I was given permission to include:

> > > A day or two ago I dared criticize GIMP [...] and that alexlg guy came
off the ropes so hard I was literally in tears over it. Just wanted to tell
you how validating it was to see you jousting over the exact same ground
with him just a few days earlier.

Another message:
> > > [...] He even went so far as to mention me by name in another thread
entirely, basically calling me a whiny baby, once enough people had
dogpiled that he was forced to slightly change his stance on something.
Even if you win, you lose...

Because he implies that he's a GIMP developer--by saying stuff like "oh,
you don't develop GIMP, you can't say anything bad about it", or using "we"
in connection with the GIMP dev team (with the word "dev" being important
here)--he seems to get some sympathy from fellow users, because what kind
of piece of shit attacks volunteers that create awesome free stuff for
people (which I agree with). It really upset me when I found out that he's
not at developer at all, but contributes in non-technical ways. This is bad
not only because I can excuse his attitude from a developer but not from
someone that writes articles on Facebook while pretending to be a developer
to please his ego, but because he doesn't get banned from communities just
because he implies that he's in the dev team.

I think that if Alexandre's job is to "market" GIMP, not only he's doing a
horrible job, but he's being detrimental to the project. It's easy to
relate to people that agree with you, they're already passionate GIMP
users! Those that have some kind of issues are the ones to really talk to,
because you can explain things to them and since GIMP is an awesome project
you can change their mind or make them more informed, and turn a critic
into a passionate GIMP user (or even evangelist). In addition, pretending
to be in the dev team is good for his ego, but really bad for the dev team,
since it just gives the impression that GIMP devs are entitiled assholes.

I'm aware that this email might not only fail to help stop Alexandre from
attacking people, but also cause more attacks towards me since I would
assume you sympathize with him, but so be it. Maybe (just maybe) you guys
are not aware of what's going on and don't actually agree with this
behavior, and (just maybe) you can get Alexandre to change his attitude
into one that is more productive and appropriate for someone who either
does or claims to represent the GIMP team.

Niccolo.
-- 
Niccolo.