Idk. I think exercising user freedom is a great and worthwhile use of Free Software. It’s why the GPL exists in the first place. Also I think the point of the fork was to change the name into something the users felt more comfortable using and recommending others to use.
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Does Linux Need Proprietary Software - Is this really a question of do YOU need Proprietary software?
Hearing Michael insist he needed Proprietary software to do his job, I’m pretty sure, answered this question, right?
I think “can” needs to be seperate from “should”.
Can they? Yes, and anyone passionate about Linux is likely to strongly support that including myself.
Should they? Now that’s a discussion.
Forking a project that diverts funding and hours is a value judgement that’s best given a lot of slack out of respect for freedom and simply not knowing the future but it’s no less a quantity that can be vaguely weighed or decisions couldn’t be made. Albeit… judging from my office chair thousands of miles away having had zero involvement. 
Given step one for Glimpse was slapping on the contributor-covenant i’d be surprised if there wasn’t a lot more to the story than just resistance to a name change. The topic really deserves a deep dive.
https://web.archive.org/web/20190826011435/https://getglimpse.app/code-of-conduct/
Glimpse image editor | So It Begins
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@Definitive_Linux, I listened again to the episode starting at 40:48, and I don’t believe @dasgeek and @kernellinux were describing the initial install and use of the Software center on Fedora. Fedora wasn’t mentioned from what I heard. They could chime in, but I think they were trying to make the point that some distros that have proprietary software enabled by default often encourage users either during the install or just after install with “Welcome Screens” or the proprietary software sources enabled by default offering new Linux users easy installs of proprietary software or even encouraging the installation of proprietary software through recommendations to use snaps or flatpaks that are enabled by default. Ryan and Noah were advocating in that discussion that it would be nice if Linux Distros pushed FOSS first and made FOSS programs the ones that were pushed in “Welcome Screens” and software centers.
I was simply making the point that on a fresh install of Fedora FOSS always gets pushed first, and FOSS gets recommended first because those 3rd party repos are not enabled by default.
I love Fedora. I use Fedora on my main box at home. I agree that through the software center you can quickly enable those repos. However, my point was that those repos are not enabled by default. If Ryan and Noah want to praise a Linux Distro that promotes FOSS first, I would like to put fourth that Fedora is already trying to do exactly what Ryan and Noah were hoping to see in Linux Distros. Currently, on my Fedora box I don’t have Google Chrome repo installed, because I don’t want to install Google Chrome on this system. When I open the software center Google Chrome is not highlighted as an app to install. In fact, if you just browse the software center Google Chrome is not even in the category called “Communication and News” where you will find all of the other browsers. If you type “Google Chrome” or “Chrome” in the search box it does come up, but when you click “Install” it asks you to enable the repo for it. That seems to be just what Ryan and Noah were looking for. Put a little roadblock in the way of proprietary software so that it is just a little harder to get proprietary software than it would be to just use or install a true FOSS alternative, so that hopefully new users would use the FOSS alternative, give bug reports and feature suggestions to the developer of the FOSS alternative, and give donations to the FOSS alternative developer so that our FOSS alternatives become better than the proprietary options that also happen to run on Linux distros too.
I guess I would like to hear from @dasgeek and @kernellinux if I understood their argument correctly, and if Fedora doesn’t already check a lot of the boxes they are hoping for.
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If memory serves from listening to past episodes, I think Noah is a big Fedora fan. I can’t remember why exactly, but I’m sure he said he uses kubuntu generally but fedora is what he really likes. Possibly something to do with stability maybe?
You are absolutely right that Fedora showcases FOSS software when you look into Gnome Software but there are two more projects that by default present you only with FOSS, Debian and openSUSE. The difference would be that they are not presenting the software in any meaningful way, or at least not in Debian because openSUSE Tumbleweed has a welcome screen. But usually people complain exactly because of that, that both distros are not suitable for a greater audience even though you can add every repo necessary without real headaches.
I love all three of them.
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I am not a Fedora user myself, but I do agree that what they are doing seems to be the right way.
Make it easy for all users to install their favorite software, but make sure that if a user, with no personal preferences enters the shop, looking for a program to play music, the FOSS alternative is the one presented first, so we are not actively creating more proprietary-dependent users.
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I personally think the “GIMP” usage in reference to someone with a disablility is particularly old hat. Just like the phrase Old Hat, calling someone a “gimp” is language not used since the '50’s/'60’s slang. No Millenial or Zoomer recognizes this or maybe even heard of such unless they watch old black and white movies…
True, they did not mention Fedora per-say, but they certainly described the initial install of a Fedora system. I misspoke in my comment, but as an avid Fedora user, and for the criticism Fedora receives as a “Moderate/Advanced User Distro” Fedora is fairly easy to use out of the box. The fact is that outside of vanilla gnome by default, installing a Fedora Spin (Cinnnamon, Mate, XFCE) would create a similar experience to noob friendly distros.
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Gigantic Reply to the whole thread incoming . . .
Krita is much better for sure but they aren’t aiming to be that kind of software so its a bit complicated like for example their text engine has been pretty bad for a long time. They may have fixed it but I dont know, been a while since testing it.
I’d agree with that. They can spend more time on it and thus make it better just by giving it attention and the commercial aspect makes it possible for them to give that attention to it.
Open Source can produce amazing software but lets be honest, in regards to the ratio of great to not so good . . . the outcome isn’t great. 
I don’t know how well this would be taken by the community but yes, I do agree this would be a reasonable solution. Give the code for free but require payment for the pre-built stuff. This is the method that Red Hat deployed for decades.
the vast majority of open source software only has the concept of that value not the act of people actually going through their code. Most of the time, no one is going through it, they just assume its good because its open. This is true for maintainers in Distros as well, a large majority of them dont pay attention to the code they put in the repos because it just wouldnt be possible to do for how many packages they support.
The ideal of Open Source is by far better without question . . . but the “in practice” that we see is often subpar at best. Its a problem of there’s more open source projects than there are people to review the code so a lot of the time no reviewing happens at all.
Open Source as a philosophy is better for sure and in some ways there are projects that surpass their proprietary counterparts but there’s not really that many of those.
So yes, I also go for Open Source as much as possible but there are just times where the open alternative is not worth using for any sense of reliability and thats where its disappointing. Sure the concept of the group effort is better and ultimately will overcome the proprietary dominance but it will take a long long time.
I agree. Krita is by far better than GIMP but its not even close to Photoshop. I say that Photoshop vs GIMP, GIMP is not even on the same planet for the race. Krita is miles away but at least they are on the same planet.
Mega was created by someone I would never trust. He burned that bridge years ago. MEGA was created by the same person who made MegUpload and MegaUpload was raided by governments and seized all of their assets because he proactively helped people pirate movies. I don’t really care about piracy in regards to media (we release our stuff as Creative Commons after all) but I do care when they put their legit customers in jeopardy. Everyone account for MegaUpload was destroyed by the FBI and our files were lost. I used to store some files on that service and I lost all of that data. So for me, even if MEGA is better than ProtonDrive, I don’t care. I won’t trust that group again.
many of them and yes. Donations are great but its also a flawed model at the same time.
this is really the biggest factor. There’s no right to have expectation in the donation model and thats just a shame.
I am effectively jaded on this topic. I have been in this realm of caring about alternatives for Photoshop for over 20 years. I have little expectation at this point for any open source alternative to really get there. I also already found an alternative that I use and it works on Linux. It’s not open source but its cheaper, lets me use it on my preferred OS and has most of the features I need. After 20 years of waiting for an alternative, I no longer look forward to what “could be” I now just look at what is there now.
I am not saying that I don’t care if it happens or that I don’t want it to happen. I do but I’m not going to claim something is an alternative when it really isn’t. Especially since I am a professional designer and my opinion on this topic might be taken stronger than others. I don’t want to mislead people.
Krita is great and it technically is an alternative but there are much better alternatives than Krita as well.
I didn’t have time to debate this in the show but if I did, I would have. I completely disagree with this and its just a misguided attempt at progress through ideology but ultimately based on social behavior . . . it would only end in failure.
I am an advocate for Open Source, FOSS, etc but there is a point where advocacy stops being advocacy and becomes ideology as the basis for decision. Pushing FOSS first above the most popular apps is not only an ineffective thing to do it can actually backfire and push people away.
I love a lot of Music Players on Linux, we have a bunch of great options BUT people trying Linux for the first time aren’t looking for those. They are looking for Spotify. If we make it easy to see that they can use Spotify that is one less thing for them to worry about being missing. The idea of hiding that is not only a bad idea, its also detrimental.
I think the way Fedora does it is ultimately their bottleneck for growth . . . it can never reach a certain point because they base decisions on principle vs user expectation.
There is never a bad time to rename this application and people have been asking them to renamed it for over 20 years. The entire time people have used Political Correctness to force that to not happen and they need to get over it because if they want that project to grow there can’t be a brand that specifically forces people away from it.
GIMP is a bad name but also its offensive and naming your software on an offensive term is just plain stupid. They guaranteed to force almost zero adoption because of this and they continue to be zealots about it. There are so many people who refused to promote it because of the name, myself included, that the name is detrimental to the project.
Also for those who dont know, GIMP is an insult to people who are disabled. It’s not bad because of the pulp fiction version. It’s the insult against a group of people reason it sucks as a name.
Well being better than GIMP is not a very high bar to reach
sorry to hear that! I don’t get the point of the insulting of people with disabilities in general. I am curious why you let it slide with that name? I realize its because of the historical context but they refuse to even acknowledge that is the problem with the name. They only ever mention the pulp fiction definition and never admit the real issue is the derogatory purpose of that word.
intent matters but also not caring about your intent being detrimental to your own project . . … thats where GIMP fails.
If they did this 15 years ago it would have had a chance to build momentum and become a competitor to Photoshop for sure because people would jump at the chance to make something good that is also respectable to associate to. There is a value in doing it because the stigma of GIMP is no longer attached and companies, schools, professionals, etc can associate themselves to it without worry of social backlash from the absurdly stupid name the other has.
That’s the value and it should have been done years ago. Now, we’re in a “maybe it could matter” stage vs it would have catapulted the project into relevance if it was 15 years ago.
That’s also just a code name that after a certain amount of time will be irrelevant and no one will care. The name of the company and the project are not controversial or problematic vs GIMP is completely offensive and an awful name. This is the key name that identifies the project and is the thing everyone will see forever. elementaryOS’ Isis vs Freya decision is insignificant in comparison.
No. It is not a “YOU” case because Linux proactively attacks proprietary companies keeping many of them away from participating on the platform. If that didn’t happen then sure it would be a individual thing but people are shamed for their audacity to create proprietary software even to the point of being called evil just for that.
Linux needs proprietary software to ever become really relevant on the desktop because thats what the software is that people want to use and while thats not an ideal situation . . . it is the current situation we live in.
I do not need proprietary software. I could do everything in GIMP or Krita but I’m not a masochist so I choose not to do that since that amount of effort, headaches and bad practices required to do that would increase my worktime at least 10x on the wasted time side. In GIMP for example it could take 5-10 minutes to do something in Photoshop (or PhotoPea) that would only take 20-30 seconds. This is not an acceptable difference for professionals.
Average users can using GIMP just fine because they open it randomly to do small things but when you spend most of your day in an application . . … it should be because you are doing a lot of work on a lot of projects . . . not just because it takes forever to do anything in the software.
He likes Fedora because he is a loyal person. He started in Linux thanks to Red Hat and because of that he likes Fedora because he likes Red Hat. This is a very simplified answer to this but it gets the gist across well enough.
As for not using Fedora, he doesn’t like GNOME and he acknowledges that Ubuntu-based is the dominance force in Linux and as someone who has to give support to people he has to know the system they are using in order to offer that support. He essentially uses Ubuntu-based because he feels he has to.
He uses Kubuntu because I convinced him a few years ago that KDE Plasma is the better desktop, which it is, and since Kubuntu implemented my ideas for improving their out of the box it has become a great distro for KDE users. So since he wants Plasma and needs Ubuntu . . . Kubuntu.
openSUSE and Fedora have potential to be good for beginners but Debian does not because they refuse to change methodologies. This is great for foundational distros like it currently is but if they ever want to be more than that then they have to change. Luckily though they dont want to change and Ubuntu was created to compensate for that and we have a viable Debian based user-friendly option.
Fedora and openSUSE are foundational distros as well but neither of them had a Ubuntu-type come around so they never got that potential fulfilled because since they wont fulfill it themselves, someone else has to.
It’s not. It is still used to this day. People use the phrase “gimp leg” for expressing a slight discomfort when they get mildly injured so the word is still in vernacular.
However, the use of an insult is also still there. There are at least 5 people I know of in this community that have a physical disability to some degree and all of them have said that they get insulted with it on a regular basis.
I learned of this insult because a friend of mine is in a wheelchair and has been since birth. I showed him GIMP software in the late 1990s and he told me all about how awful that was for a name of software and how he refused to even consider looking at it.
A lot of people think the word is meaningless now in the say way that “humbug” is now meaningless but that’s only because of out of sight, out of mind. The people who deal with it, hear it often.
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Ah yes, I for one deal with all kinds of humbug on a daily basis.
I am not a designer but some of the work I do is designer-adjacent. Lack of Photoshop and Photoshop accessories is primarily what is keeping Linux off of my work computer. What is this magical near-Photoshop called and where can I buy it?
I am making a video on it for details about how good it is but if you are familiar with Photoshop fairly well then it should be clear very quickly how cool this is.
Photopea is a webapp alternative to Photoshop and it can do an amazing amount of stuff as a webapp. It supports layer styles, smart objects, smart filters, layer masks, vectors with svg, and so much more. It’s also only $40 per year.
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If I go into a bar and ask for a beer and the beer they serve me, is an unknown (to me) brand, from the local brewery, that would be considered a reflection of their values and most people understand and support that choice.
If you ask for a specific brand of beer, they better serve it, or they are not serving their customers well, but we do not expect all bars to serve the same beer by default, just because it is the most popular on the market.
You can even criticize a bar for not supporting the local brewery, while still respecting that it’s their own choice in the end.
Serving the free choice by default, but serving proprietary by request is a GOOD THING™ that reflects GOOD VALUES.
This is why it’s called FREEDOM AS IN BEER (or maybe I got that bit wrong 
)
Those bars are on the same playing field, they are competing on equal footing. One bar is not considered too complicated to go to and thus sending away people due to a stigma attached. So their decision to choose whatever beer they want when they are requested an order of a generic term of “give me a beer” is not a problem for them because they know they didn’t specify.
Its not a good thing. It is reflecting good values sure but that doesn’t make it a good thing to do. Linux as the example is fighting that stigma of too complicated and it is dealing with a reputation of things just dont work in Linux so why even bother. This situation means that pushing one thing that they’ve never heard of for ideology vs serving them things they have heard of will just perpetuate that stigma and reputation.
It’s not ideal to need proprietary software but we do and at the moment choosing the ignore that as a user is fine but choosing to ignore that as an OS or an ecosystem is just detrimental to growth.
There is a compromise though, feature both of them at equal levels. Most Popular box and a Featured box with the Featured being open source. Its not bad to promote Open Source alongside Proprietary, the part thats bad is promoting the thing they havent heard of instead of showing what they have. Showing that you have something they’ve heard of is a psychological method of creating familiarity which for an ecosystem that is trying to grow, it’s needed.
First of all, @MichaelTunnell, well done sir on an excellent post to this thread. You gave so many well thought out replies to the points that were made here. Thank you for the time you put into this thread.
I wish you had the time in the show to address this, because you have provided some excellent points to consider in this thread concerning the point that @dasgeek and @kernellinux were attempting to make. I felt that their point is weakened by the fact that I don’t hear either of them frequently advocating for new users to start with or even try Fedora, Debian, and OpenSuse which have all been mentioned in this thread as being FOSS forward or FOSS first Linux distributions. If they feel that passionately about this point, than I believe it would be wise for them to promote them as first options for new comers to Linux. Although they have spoken well of all three distros, I don’t believe I have ever heard them advocate or encourage new comers to Linux to try those distros first because they are FOSS forward distros.
You make some good points in the quote above, and in other responses in this thread to that argument. I enjoy Fedora, and part of the reason is because they are a community that sticks to their principles in promoting FOSS first. At the same time, I do install codecs from RPM Fusion right away, so I don’t keep my system in a pristine FOSS state either.
I equally love MX Linux which does tons of things to make it easy to install popular apps even proprietary apps on a stable Debian base. I love Ubuntu Mate as well, which makes installing proprietary nuggets easy.
I’m excited whenever I hear that someone is running a Linux Distro, regardless of what they have chosen. If someone wanted to switch to Linux, and asked for my advice, I would first listen to what they would like to do on their computer, and steer them towards the distro that makes that transition the easiest which may not be Fedora, but at least we might have another desktop Linux user.
Great points @MichaelTunnell and thanks for contributing to this thread.
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RE: GIMP,
I’m probably being kinder than the project deserves to look past the name.
@Definitive_Linux actually kinda made my point for me
Within the context of FOSS I don’t have to explain GIMP to anyone so it’s no longer offensive to me. Just embarrassing that they haven’t changed it; that’s to their own determent because I’m less likely to suggest it as a Photoshop alternative because I’m also not going to waste my time defending the name.
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Well, one additional point Krita has, is that we can see very active development and changes, when GIMP is almost the same application it was 5, if not more, yers ago.
That’s why I’m hoping to see Krita get even better and more powerful with time and I don’t have the same hopes for GIMP.
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A little more on the general GIMP name discussion…
A lot of people hide their problems because they don’t want to be mothered. It’s a soft insult of low expectations that’s not intended but is still there.
If anyone counts up every person they know who’s less than “perfect” they’ll find the harder those people have had it the tougher they are. I don’t regard tough people as equals, I regard them as superiors. imho, the people who need saving from language are one’s who lacked or were prevented the opportunity to gain that quality of character, that strength and dependability, that orientation toward conquering one’s circumstance.
People have a right to know what people think of them. Words don’t make cruel people, cruel people make up words. All word banning does is make everyone confused over who thinks what which doesn’t end well (check the news). We all have a right to know early who we wish to associate with.
Retaking words shows they have no power, it’s a statement that as a society we deem it’s former meaning as valueless. That we’ve moved on and for the tough it’s yet another opportunity to show their grit if someone doesn’t rob that for them.
So…
Is GIMP bad for branding? Yes.
Is it a terrible name for a graphics program? Yes.
Should GIMP change it’s name? Yes.
Should GIMP change it’s name right now? Yes.
Should GIMP change it’s name because a fraction of a fraction of the World’s population considers gimp a derogatory word if used in a completely different context? No.
Hats off to GIMP for taking so much definition market share for search:
We’re bigger than this and anyone who’s the recipient of a derogatory use I damn well guarantee they’re tougher than we can imagine.
Maybe mobile loads up the page differently but the derogatory/slang definitions are on both of these pages.
That being said, I believe Glimpse isn’t bothering the GIMP development because it will only bring in developers who probably weren’t going to develop GIMP anyways.
Remember the fork FilmGimp? Tool used by a variety of movie studios on Oscar award winning movies. They unanimously agreed to change the name to something more professional. CinePaint reigned supreme for a while.
The GIMP team didn’t care much for their efforts either.
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You are correct, made the edit.
Scrolling the full page goes a long way ;). I’m not used to the format being cloned for each definition as if it’s a new word.
Didn’t help either that dictionary.com has a fat space underneath the first one capped by an advertisement as if it’s a footer plus the fonts are gigantic. Good lesson for next time, the World is being re-ininvented for tiny screens.
It was still surprising not seeing the derogatory version as the first definition given the level of controversy though.
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