Re: [Gimp-gui] GIMP ---> Pixi: suggested name change

[Jehan <jehan girinstud io>]

Hi,

On 2017-05-08 16:51, Joshua Coppersmith-Heaven wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> GIMP is a great programme, but it is not a great name. Changing its

I have been wondering whether I should let this email in (since you were 
not subscribed to the mailing lists, your email goes into a pending 
queue for admin approval; next time, subscribe if you want your email to 
get directly in) since it felt off-topic.  For information, the gimp-gui 
mailing list is to discuss graphical interface and user experience 
improvements.

Well it can be argued that the name of the program is as much about user 
experience as the GUI, so that's why I let the message pass. :-)

> identity to something more likeable will help to get more users, and
> potentially more developers.

This question often comes back into discussion and basically a possible 
answer is that first GIMP is not a commercial product. We are not trying 
to get "market share", just to make a high quality image software, many 
of us in their spare time. Reasons are various: many for fun, some 
because they use it and want the best they can get for their usage, some 
because they like to work on advanced image manipulation algorithms, 
whatever else you want… The fact is that few people care about what the 
program is named in the end.

Another point is that even considering market share, it could be argued 
that GIMP is a very famous brand now. It is known by millions of people, 
not only in the FLOSS world, but even people who don't even know what 
Free Software means, on all main 3 platforms (Windows, OSX, GNU/Linux). 
So changing the name may not be the best move. Many companies proved 
that it is actually possible to do so and be successful, but they would 
do it first because their product/company have a bad reputation at some 
point that they expect to clean out with a name change; and especially a 
name change needs to be done together with a very heavy marketing move. 
Every big name change of well-known products or companies is accompanied 
with massive advertisement to make it work. Being a community project, 
this is quite difficult to do for us and may very well end up as a big 
failure.

When I see that years later, people still call it "The Gimp" instead of 
GIMP (I even discussed with someone who was writing books about GIMP and 
they would be titled with the old orthography; when I would tell him, he 
said he preferred the old writing and won't change for next books)… What 
can we expect?!

> There is a commercial image editor called Pixie (with an e), but not
> Pixi. This makes sense, as long as the software remains a pixel-based
> editor. I've thought about the name for a while, before google came
> out with their latest phone!

Trying to go for a name very close to an existing similar software is 
the key to a big failure and probably even a lawsuit (even if not 
exactly the same, this other company could tell one try to confuse 
people). Why would we do this?

> The logo could also feature some kind of pixelated pixi type character
> (think a stylised zelda character), to replace to paintbrush-dog,
> which seems to not have much in connection with the name gimp.... or
> am I missing something?

It's true that Wilber does not have much relationship to the name or 
GIMP… well do most mascots? Has a penguin any relationship to an OS 
kernel?
But a lot of people find this character very funny. And as I said, 
having fun is a very important part of any community project. 
Contributors don't usually contribute to find themselves in a company 
atmosphere again, doing boring business chores and being yelled at by 
insulting managers because they are not corporate enough.

> Be interested to know your thoughts,

I am not fully against name changes in some future, if ever GIMP were 
getting a more organized community and some people who wanted to go 
further. But right now, I feel this would just go wrong.

Also I would hate we lose the for-fun part of GIMP development and 
around. This should never be forgotten or else there would be no reason 
anymore to continue (for me at least). If that means having a shift with 
common "good" business practices and having a name which makes some 
too-serious people cringe, well so be it. I don't mind too much 
(personally again).

Also I remind that this name is only a problem in some English-speaking 
countries. Other countries don't have any problem with this name in 
their language. I personally only discovered that this was a word in 
English after starting to contribute (reading messages similar as 
yours), even though I had known GIMP for years already.

Jehan

> All the best
>
>
> Joshua
>
>
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