[lynndotpy]

While I agree, and I've been hammering this point as a GIMP user for two decades I think the "GIMP is actually a fine name" are increasingly a minority. Its name makes GIMP hostile to user adoption. Anyone who works in a primarily English-spekaing country knows what it's like to try to use GIMP at work, especially in K-12.

It's not like it was an accident, either. GIMP is a backronym because they wanted to name it after the full-body sex slave suit. They shot themselves in the face with that one.

[mixmastamyk]

It’s only the British (and influenced by) who have a negative view of the name. The rest of us don’t care, and wish you’d quit bringing it up.

For example there’s a juice company here in the US named ’Suja,’ and it’s obvious they have no Brazilian employees because it means dirty/obscene in Portuguese.

Simple words sometimes mean unfortunate things in other countries. Adults get over them.

[lynndotpy]

This is not true, I am in America and the name has been seriously problematic.

This is not surprising, the developers were English-speaking Americans who chose a name to cause offense on purpose, in reference to the full-body sex slave suit in Pulp Fiction: https://www.xach.com/gg/1997/1/profile/1/

I don't know who you claim to represent with "the rest of us", but I can only speak for the experience in America. It doesn't matter whether or not you agree with me, it's a simple fact that the name GIMP has been a barrier to its adoption.

[mixmastamyk]

Am in California and have never heard this word used outside of the image editor, in my entire life. Not a spring chicken.

Yes, finally looked it up after listening to boring complaints for two decades. Don’t care; mildly amusing collision.

[lynndotpy]

To repeat, it's not a collision, because it was not accidental. Kimball and Mattis named their image editor after the full-body sex-slave suit, on purpose. GIMP is a backronym.

It's also worth emphasizing that "Pulp Fiction" is not an obscure movie, it was actually a very very popular movie from the 1990s and it's still relevant today. It won awards from every organization that gave movies awards. It was recently quoted by the US Secretary of Defense during a prayer, who thought he was quoting the Bible.

While I believe you when you say you're personally not familiar with the usage of the word, it's a word that you can expect most people would recognize.

[mghackerlady]

Do you have any evidence it was done on purpose? The devs have referenced the unfortunate name a few times but I think it is infinitely more likely they chose the name in reference to the poor quality of the software or as a normal acronym

[lynndotpy]

Yes, I cited it an above comment: https://www.xach.com/gg/1997/1/profile/1/

Here is the full quote:

> > Your home page says that you created GIMP to address the lack of free or inexpensive Unix graphics tools. How did you guys actually get together to tackle this? Was it like in Blues Brothers? Were you on a mission from God?

> Spencer was my brother's roommate for four years. (He's been my roommate for the past six months). So I knew who he was when we decided to take the compilers course here together. Big mistake. During one of the impossibly boring assignments we decided we wanted to do something which wouldn't suck. The idea of doing the GIMP actually fell out fairly naturally.

> It took us a little while to come up with the name. We knew we wanted an image manipulation program like Photoshop, but the name IMP sounded wrong. We also tossed around XIMP (X Image Manipulation Program) following the rule of when in doubt prefix an X for X11 based programs. At the time, Pulp Fiction was the hot movie and a single word popped into my mind while we were tossing out name ideas. It only took a few more minutes to determine what the 'G' stood for.

[mixmastamyk]

Ask anyone under fifty what "pulp fiction" was and prepare to get mostly blank stares. Can barely remember it myself.

Reminds me of those creeps in "Footloose" trying to outlaw dancing. Puritanism can get fucked. ;-)

[lynndotpy]

I'm gen Z, we know what Pulp Fiction is. Even the gen alphas do. We just had a crossover in Fortnite, and Pulp Fiction is in the Chainsaw Man opening.

I'm anti-Puritan as well, but there are far better hills to die on. In either case, it's moot, since "gimp" is also used as an ableist slur.

I haven't seen Footloose, but we don't need analogies to fictional movie villains. The facts are that they decided to give GIMP a stupid name, and so they missed out on investment and adoption because of that decision. It doesn't matter what you or I think, I'm just describing something that already happened.

[jrm4]

Individual adults absolutely do, but "systems, PR, and institutions" DO NOT, and that is the important lesson that so many people here aggressively dodge.

I personally can download this software and use it on my computer.

Now, can I recommend it to my class? Through zero fault or opinion of my own, it still might be a very bad idea for me professionally.

Maybe I don't like how sensitive people are. TOO BAD, it doesn't matter in this context.

The clowns who refuse to rename GIMP keep missing a huge opportunity.

[lotsoweiners]

I’ve had GIMP recommended as a free photo editing tool in many classes. Just saying that’s while you may not feel comfortable with recommending it, many others do.

[stuaxo]

I thought it was mostly Americans who cared about the name and not British, could totally be wrong though.

[F3nd0]

> Anyone who works in a primarily English-spekaing country knows what it's like to try to use GIMP at work, especially in K-12.

Over the many times this topic was brought up here, plenty of people from English-speaking countries have said that no, they’ve never had a problem with it.

Yes, some people did have a problem with it. It's a valid point to bring up. But that does not mean their experience must have been shared by literally everyone else, or even the majority of people in similar circumstances.

[lynndotpy]

That's fair, it's likely not _everybody_ would have a problem. But _enough_ people would. There are contexts where I've had no problems (e.g. in an office where every cubicle had at least one Linux machine, plenty of people had already heard of GIMP).

I think if GIMP had a different name, it would have had less friction in its adoption (or a higher "R-number"), Adobe would be less extractive (for having viable FOSS to compete with), and GIMP would have had more investment (in terms of money and dev hours). I'm certainly happy GIMP isn't completely abandoned, at the very least.

[jrm4]

But what it DOES mean is -- okay, is it really worth it to KEEP it, or might you be able to get adoption, fans, traction, possibly more developers etc. etc. if you were to change it?

What is the strong motivation behind keeping the name and was it valid?

(No. The answer is no, it was not. There's no real good reason to keep it compared to the potential upsides.)

[F3nd0]

I would have answered differently, but I guess you were asking yourself…?

[accrual]

There was a short lived project to fork and rebrand under Glimpse with improved UI, but it's been inactive for years. All the links I find are forks of forks, 404s, and parked domains.

[stuaxo]

The name Glimpse has a horrible sound to it, they should have gone with something very different.

Also these tend to work when the new project has momentum and enough developers.

Sodipodi was forked to Inkscape, part of it was they wanted to change language to C++.

The momentum went to the new program.