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WTF? It's like saying somebody should buy an F1 car just because it's fastest

I agree 100%. People should buy a machine to suit their needs. Anyone who blindly buys the fastest model available is just being egotistical and foolish.

which does not cost them their house and children

A new Mac mini goes for $599 and a MacBook is $999. This is hardly "house and children" figures. Pick a reasonable Mac then go to Dell and spec out a similar machine. The PC prices will be in a close neighborhood.

not require special fuel and can run on ordinary road

This article is not about the iPhone. It is about Apple systems running OS X that can utilize Boot Camp.

Hardly any "special fuel" required on OS X systems. Take your pick from any of the great open source apps available for the platform: Firefox, Thunderbird, Inkscape, Gimp, VLC, Eclipse, the list goes on. Wanna write some code? Xcode comes free with OS X. Don't wanna use Xcode, then use another IDE or directly use make, gcc, gdb, and vim.

As for your "ordinary road" comment ... I'm writing this on a four year old iMac. Over the years I've upgraded the memory (Crucial has great prices) and hard drive (1TB was only $99 at Fry's). My mouse of choice is a five button Logitech scroll mouse. I hardly feel "locked in" or "abused".

Way to go on a tangent!

Way to spread FUD. How about we just let people use the computer that best suits their needs.

Getting back on topic, I've been running Windows 7 in both Boot Camp and Parallels 5 with no problems. I don't know what the damage is with this "article".

So I've used various drawing programs for years to make crappy little graphical schematics to post online. MS Paint is all I really need, although I've used Photoshop and similar programs as well.

I heard a lot about how powerful GIMP was, and my Mac didn't come with even a basic drawing tool, so I downloaded it. Lasted... oh, maybe 2 minutes.

The issue came when I wanted to draw a line. Now, every other graphics program I've used has a "line" tool, somewhere in plain sight. Observe:
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-vista/Using-Paint
http://www.extropia.com/tutorials/photoshop/line_tool.html ...and so on. Such was not the case for GIMP. In GIMP, you use the Shift key with other tools to draw lines. Not an inherently bad way of doing things, I guess. But here's how you have to find out about it:

http://www.gimp.org/tutorials/Straight_Line/ (That's from the official GIMP site, mind you.)

Hey, GIMP guys. Screw you and your sarcastic screenshot telling me what the "Shift" button is. Your interface is the WEIRD one. People who use MS Paint or Photoshop or friggin' ClarisWorks - your potential customers - expect "line" to be a tool, not a key. And it's not like the key is entitled "Shift Or Draw Straight Lines In Some Linux Programs." It is NON-OBVIOUS that this would be the manner you draw lines. I don't care that I had to look up how to use a new interface, but don't act like I'm supposed to psychically fucking know ahead of time how your arbitrary interface works.

Note how both MS Paint and Photoshop are way MORE straightforward in this operation, and yet avoid sarcasm in their tutorials.

Inversely, are we supposed to believe you because of your registered account or UID? a quick google search of "gimp solaris motif" says no . Try not harping on people just because they're anonymous, douchebag. Disclaimer: I am not the anon.

From the link:

Currently, the biggest restriction to running the GIMP is the Motif
requirement. We will release a statically linked binary for several
systems soon (including Linux).

Do you suggest I do the same thing?

At my company, we downloaded all of our software for free off of the Internet. The software titles include: OpenBSD, Inkscape, Komodo, and Gimp.

I'm torn because the owner openly and brazenly brags about this.

Digital wizardry to the rescue...

Now those freeloaders are given a choice: a pirated OS and paid-for AV, or a paid-for OS and a free AV.

Or they could choose a free OS with no need for AV and plenty of free software. But that's the kind of a crazy idea that I'm sure would never work.

The macro recording is more or less planned for GIMP 3.0

http://www.gimp.org/docs/userfaq.html#Macro

Has it?

http://weisbeek.freewebhostx.com/gimp/#save

It does look like there are save options in the file menu now:

http://docs.gimp.org/2.6/en/gimp-images-out.html#id2980879

I guess the gimp has been making some usability enhancements too.

Take someone fully new to computers and have them learn Linux or Windows and chances are they will figure out Linux faster

I'm confused.. weren't you talking about word processors just two lines back? Now it's operating systems? What aspects of that operating system, exactly? Are you talking about the desktop management or the CLI?

That said.. I understand what you're trying to say.. that people are biased from their experience with a 'competing' product.

On the other hand, that bias may not be a bad thing.

Just as an example... The GIMP vs Photoshop.
If somebody had never touched a graphics editing application before and just got around to copy/pasting something and would be wondering how he or she might rotate and enlarge that bit they just pasted.
In The GIMP, this is very straightforward. There's a rotate tool, and a scale tool. Almost couldn't be easier. The GIMP developers rejoice.
Yet, they don't, and are seeking a unified transformations tool. Why? Because people's experience with other graphics editors shows them that users realize the added value of a transformation tool that can do rotating and scaling (and sometimes more) at the same time via on-screen feedback; both in terms of workflow -and- in terms of the quality of the result.
But if you only let people who never touched another graphics editor test the existing tools, you'll have to wait for that one-in-N person who goes "wouldn't it be easier/better if..." to get to that "wow. that's so obvious when we look at it now, why didn't we think of that" point.

That's why you want a diverse set of testers, and that includes testers intimately familiar with competing products. It's your task as a developer (or usability expert) to find out whether their bias is justified (i.e. the expectation isn't odd, it's simply logical) or not (expectation -is- odd).

( fwiw - though gui.gimp.org is not responding - http://gui.gimp.org/index.php/Transformation_tool_specification , http://www.mmiworks.net/eng/publications/2009_03_01_archive.html , http://gimp-brainstorm.blogspot.com/search/label/transformation%20tool )

What's the alternative to Photoshop CS4 ?

http://www.gimp.org/

Another reason most open-source projects get no press is that they are very poorly communicated in every way. An example is LaTeX. It requires two paragraphs in the Wikipedia article to explain just the name.

Another example is GIMP. One of the meanings of gimp is "cripple".

Another example is UltraVNC. UltraVNC is excellent. The UltraVNC web site is a mess.

The open source experience is often "It's free, but you must spend a very frustrating week learning how to use it." Those who write for publication don't have a week to understand a project, and they don't want to write about something that would frustrate their readers.

Hi,
Firstly if you're looking for opensource app replacements you can always try www.osalt.com.

Personally I'd try:
Photoshop: GIMP or GIMPShop or Krita
Illustrator: Inkscape or XaraXtreme
InDesign: scribus
Dreamweaver: KompoZer or Aptana or seamonkey or Amaya or href="http://net2.com/nvu/">NVU

I also found this website which might help: www.thefreesuite.com

Here are the relevant OSalt links:
photoshop
illustrator
indesign
dreamweaver

When you have to look up documentation to figure out how to draw a straight line in the Gimp, and that documentation is somewhat condescending, you might start to think that the Gimp isn't actually that good for simple tasks.

Strange ... drawing a straight line in the Gimp is a pretty straightforward (pardon the pun) thing to do, all you need is the paint tool of your choice and the shift key. Even if you can't figure it out intuitively, the interface tells you down the bottom when a paint tool is selected "(try Shift for a straight line, Ctrl to pick a color)". Why is this so difficult to grasp? Personally, if we're trading individual anecdotes here, I tried paint.net and struggled; in comparison, the Gimp did everything paint.net could do and more. But I think the real surprise about paint.net being included in a list of open-source software is that it's not open-source in the first place ...

Anyway, if you want to draw straight lines, a vector graphics program like Inkscape is probably going to be more your scene. And that's the glaring omission in the list for me: Inkscape is a brilliant vector graphics implementation and I would have thought it easily deserved a mention.

Is there a reason, other than complexity of interface, that one might choose it over gimp.

"complexity of interface" is a pretty damn good thing to base a decision on.

That. I have moved in the last couple of months to using Ubuntu at work and am loving it, except that I really, really miss Paint.NET. Using the GIMP is like using Lotus Notes. But Ubuntu is so good in other respects that I'm sticking with it. Some people dual-boot for games; I'm dual-booting for image editing.

When you have to look up documentation to figure out how to draw a straight line in the Gimp, and that documentation is somewhat condescending, you might start to think that the Gimp isn't actually that good for simple tasks.

Oh my gods. I see what you mean. I'm a bit puzzled, though by:

"After you have a starting point, and have held down the Shift Key, you'll see a line like above if you're running GIMP version 1.2.x or later. This feature was not present in GIMP version 1.0.4. However, the next step works the same way."

What a tosser "Seth" is. But ... could you really not draw straight lines in the GIMP in v.1.0.4?!

Is there a reason, other than complexity of interface, that one might choose it over gimp.

"complexity of interface" is a pretty damn good thing to base a decision on.

I suppose gimp does not have all the shapes of a drawing program, but it does paint, with colors.

When you have to look up documentation to figure out how to draw a straight line in the Gimp, and that documentation is somewhat condescending, you might start to think that the Gimp isn't actually that good for simple tasks.

Anyway, I can tell from your post that you don't just use Emacs, but I swear I think some Emacs users went back for one too many cups of the Kool-aid.

Some always do, seems to be the case for everything. Some are however tongue-in-cheek (yes of course Emacs can do this, here's how!), I believe the SVG comment is one of them. Also every time I switch some text-related task to Emacs (even if I switch back later) I can understand people who spend most of their computer time in Emacs. If most of what you do with a computer is edit text, and you are an Emacs user, after a while when you need to get another task done your first inclination becomes to look for a suitable Emacs mode in the same way that an OS X user will look for a native app first and only when that fails look at something for X Windows.

I however simply do to much graphics editing to be able to stick with Emacs for everything. Even if I sometimes do wish for some of the features of Emacs in my graphics packages... Looks like I'm not the only one:

The amount of menu entries in GIMP - either from plug-ins, scripts or internal functions - is huge. The name of a particular function might be easier to remember than its menu location. Being able to search for the function and applying it to the image without having to go through the menus can help (similar to Emacs' M-x feature).

I like your logic.

Apple's free iPhoto application doesn't do stuff as well as you'd like, therefore the Mac fails at "getting stuff done."

Yup, that's good thinking, right there. There can't possibly be any other apps for the Mac outside of Apple, can there?

http://www.gimp.org/macintosh/
http://www.pixelmator.com/
http://seashore.sourceforge.net/

Ah, you get the idea.

And no, the iPhoto red-eye removal is not just a black paint tool. I just tried it (never use iPhoto, but was curious about your earlier claim) and it seems to try to find nearby red pixels before stripping the red out and shading them with a dark grey. I don't like red-eye removal tools at the best of times, so I'd not tried this before.

Out of curiosity, do any image editors actually recognise an eye, and refuse to use a red-eye reduction tool outside the eye's pupil? That's pretty sophisticated image recognition.

The freely available x360mediaserver http://sourceforge.net/projects/x360mediaserve/ will send streaming internet radio to the xbox360. It runs on any PC with java (Linux or windows). I haven't tried it with last.fm, but I assume it would work. If it doesn't, run the Lastfm stream through LastFMProxy http://vidar.gimp.org/?page_id=50 and connect to the proxied stream with x360mediaserve.

Under the "strict" reading, can't this also be applied to various open source projects?
For instance, GIMP is a powerful image manipulation program, that to some rivals Adobe's Photoshop and Corel's Paint Shop.
And if this asinine law were to be strictly applied to this program, it could be disastrous. Especially considering the $500 or so price tag of Photoshop (Paint Shop can be as little as 20 bucks to 50 bucks depending on various rebates).

What about Debian? Wasn't there an article just recently on Slashdot that calculated the cost it took to develop Debian 5?

Or Ubuntu?
Or Chrome/Firefox/Opera?

And don't forget independent or forward-thinking musicians and artists (including writers) who publish their digital works online for free.
How will they be affected? Will this law become another tool for big corporations and entities to abuse to kill off the independent artists?

Some things to think about, especially since they do say that the devil is in the details.

My first experience installing and using linux was with Red Hat Linux 4.1. It was mostly out of curiosity as my younger brother had been using linux but I didn't expect much from a free operating system. At the time I was running Windows 95, Windows NT 4 and OS/2 Warp 4 on the same box so I was already well prepared the difficulties of a multi-boot setup and using a diversity of operating systems.

Its been awhile but I don't recall any major issues with the installation. It definitely required more tweaking than the other operating systems to get a working desktop, but as pretty much anyone in this forum knows there is a high probability of install difficulties with almost any operating system when you build a custom system rather than purchase a pre-installed system.

I don't recall the window manager I used at the time but it was a functional desktop albeit not as polished as Windows or OS/2. But something interesting happened, I found Gimp.

I had a large flatbed color scanner on a SCSI bus that I used in Windows and OS/2. In Windows I used the applications that shipped with the scanner and for OS/2 I purchased an image editing program, I don't recall the name anymore, in both cases the applications absolutely refused to use the full size of the scanner. The scanner was a full legal size 8.5x14 but the proprietary applications would only allow up to 8.5x11 scans. With a little research I found there were applications available for purchase that would use the full scan size but I was not in dire need of full legal size scans so I held off on the purchase.

When I used Gimp+SANE with the flatbed scanner it allowed complete legal size scans! My eyes were opened. In the proprietary closed source software world the extra scan size required extra cash, which seemed ludicrous and disingenuous as I doubt it required any significant code changes to implement, but in the open source world the software was written to take full advantage of the hardware's capabilities and it was FREE!

At that point I was sold. By 2003 I was only running linux based operating systems, my laptop, three desktops in the house, a couple of firewalls/routers and a few servers. During this time I have become progressively aware of the ridiculous demands of the closed source proprietary software vendors. They have become sick and demented on their own greed to the point where they've twisted the purpose of Article 1, Section 8, Clause 8 of the United States Constitution from "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts" into some bizarre protected and perpetual revenue stream. In this upside down world created by closed source software vendors research and development capital is spent not to advance the science or art but instead to create false limitations on there proprietary applications capabilities to create equally false product price points.

I don't know why you picked that one out. It will add a feature that visibly improves the quality of all image shrinks, past what Photoshop can do out of the box. It's a really useful, basic improvement.

Read about it here if you're curious:

http://wiki.gimp.org/gimp/SummerOfCode2009ideas#head-ee0a4959625baa7bff3da72ec494b0f5f10859dd

For example, I wrote a free Gimp script for web design that helps create (what I call) a website window. I doubt it has an official name.

I would use these terms for those who create a website:
Front-End Web Developer (HTML/JavaScript)
Back-End Web Developer (server-side scripts)
Web Designer (graphics)

It's not just about sticker price, and "FOSS beyond Linux servers" is pretty broad.

I'm a tech writer/UI designer/sometimes web guy at a small (~75 employees) ISV. Our company uses, and even prefers, FOSS when it suits us. Our two head IT guys are Linux nerds like me, which helps.

Basically, the F/OSS software we use falls into one of several categories (this only includes the software I use in my roles, and that I encountered during a stint in QA).

1. FOSS software that sees regular use.
   • Linux: It powers our web and mail servers. Our QA guys use Linux + VMWare to test our (Windows-based) server software. I've been offered a Linux workstation for a web-based project I'm working on, but XP+IIS may be the only solution.*
   • Audacity: We use this to record voice tracks for Captivate demos.
   • 7-zip: Every workstation has this.
   • Firefox: Again, the company standard.
   • Notepad++: A few of us have this for editing raw HTML/CSS/XML/etc.
   • OpenOffice: Don't get excited, Office 2003 is still our bread and butter. This lives on my secondary workstation for simple one-off tasks.
2. OSS software that was tried but failed
   • GIMP: This was before I started at the company, and at the time it couldn't equal Paint Shop Pro (which is what we use now).
   • Scribus: We tried this before caving and purchasing FrameMaker 8. Scribus simply can't match the features or (more importantly) training resources of FrameMaker.

We also use Lotus Notes, which is based on Eclipse.

* I have 2 XP workstations so that I can run every product I might need to document, some of which must be run simultaneously on separate machines. Neither machine is up to spec for Xen or VMWare.

1. Color-managed workflow - a must for even a serious amateur
2. Proper printing (see also 1)
3. No need to spend numerous hours learning a new UI and workflow
4. A massive library of plugins
5. Built-in stitching (used by landscape pros)
6. GIMP probably doesn't have Smart Filters and some other advanced doodads which have made later CS versions indispensable for those (admittedly few people) who know how to use them

1. I don't have work that requires rigorous color management so I don't use any such feature from GIMP, but I'll trust that you know what you're talking about.

Hey, wait a second! What's this, then! That was back in 2.4! Man, I'm going to have to be careful about trusting what you say.

2. You'll have to say specifically what's missing here.

3. That's a bogus complaint. I mean, the difficulty of learning a new interface, and even extra awkwardness because of being accustomed to another, is a legitimate issue, but it is not something unique or inherent to GIMP. But an already-learned interface is not something "a professional image editor [has] that GIMP doesn't" -- one still has to learn the interface of closed-source applications. It's a legitimate complaint outside the topic you're addressing.

4. Is there a specific plug-in capability that you think is lacking in GIMP's large provided-with-app plug-in library or is lacking in the available realm of plug-ins provided by third parties?

5. That's a pretty specific need. But at a glance I see four different plug-ins for stitching? Why is built-in critical here, especially on the heels of talking up the value of plug-ins?

6. As far as I can tell this is correct. I mean, Smart Filters. "Other indispensible advanced doodads" is vague, though, innit?

Any bets on when GIMP gets Smart Filters? Shortly before you start using it, perhaps?

If GIMP had a decent GUI and a more intuitive workflow, a lot less of this book would really be necessary and GIMP might actually find some greater acceptance.

I disagree, it's different than Photoshop but gets the job done. But why not let people make their own minds up. Hands-on experience is worth any amount of reviews ..

'the GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is a freely distributed piece of software for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring. It works on many operating systems, in many languages'

Here's a modification that replicates the look of Photoshop - GIMPshop

where's the Photoshop or InDesign clones?

Here and here. I've not used Scribus much, but I actually prefer GIMP to Photoshop in most cases.

I agree that Open Office really just isn't up to par, though. Open Office is fine, or even better than MS Office for a casual user, but it fails pretty badly for a serious user.

If you MUST use Windows:

http://www.openoffice.org/
http://www.gimp.org/downloads/
http://www.inkscape.org/download/?lang=en

If you're partial to macs you have the same options:

http://www.openoffice.org/
http://www.gimp.org/downloads/
http://www.inkscape.org/download/?lang=en

If you're fed up with Microsoft and don't have a Mac (or if you have a Mac but are tiring of OS X):

http://www.opensuse.org/en/
http://www.kubuntu.org/
http://www.xandros.com/
http://www.centos.org/
http://fedoraproject.org/

If you MUST use Windows:

http://www.openoffice.org/
http://www.gimp.org/downloads/
http://www.inkscape.org/download/?lang=en

If you're partial to macs you have the same options:

http://www.openoffice.org/
http://www.gimp.org/downloads/
http://www.inkscape.org/download/?lang=en

If you're fed up with Microsoft and don't have a Mac (or if you have a Mac but are tiring of OS X):

http://www.opensuse.org/en/
http://www.kubuntu.org/
http://www.xandros.com/
http://www.centos.org/
http://fedoraproject.org/

It's like the difference between The Gimp and Pixelmator.

Both do image editing (and in this case The Gimp is a more powerful tool) but Pixelmator fits in with the look and feel of OS X and works extremely well with other Mac apps. In fact look at the two websites - The Gimp's site looks like crap. Having used both to some degree and not needing the full power of The Gimp, I dumped it for Pixelmator a long time back. The UI is unbelievably far ahead of The Gimp.

If you're going to use an app for any length of time, it should be as comfortable as possible. This is obvious for cars, for furniture, for workplaces but somehow it's a debated point for software applications. Aesthetics are important, and for some reason Mac users care a lot about the concept.

That's a long answer to your somewhat troll-y question, but there it is. Mac users can certainly use apps that work on Linux and Windows, we just choose not to if something more usable exists.

• The first page of your application's webpage should explain what the software *IS* and *HOW TO USE IT*, not just provide a long list of your bug-fixes.

Interesting... GIMP must be in the 1% that does. From http://gimp.org/...

GIMP is the GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is a freely distributed piece of software for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring. It works on many operating systems, in many languages. (more...)

• The first page of your application's webpage should explain what the software *IS* and *HOW TO USE IT*, not just provide a long list of your bug-fixes.

Interesting... GIMP must be in the 1% that does. From http://gimp.org/...

GIMP is the GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is a freely distributed piece of software for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring. It works on many operating systems, in many languages. (more...)

• The first page of your application's webpage should explain what the software *IS* and *HOW TO USE IT*, not just provide a long list of your bug-fixes.

Interesting... GIMP must be in the 1% that does. From http://gimp.org/...

GIMP is the GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is a freely distributed piece of software for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring. It works on many operating systems, in many languages. (more...)

• The first page of your application's webpage should explain what the software *IS* and *HOW TO USE IT*, not just provide a long list of your bug-fixes.

Interesting... GIMP must be in the 1% that does. From http://gimp.org/...

GIMP is the GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is a freely distributed piece of software for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring. It works on many operating systems, in many languages. (more...)

Just look at 99% of OSS websites, done by coders who have no idea how to present their software to anyone but other coders--leading to my tip:

        * The first page of your application's webpage should explain what the software *IS* and *HOW TO USE IT*, not just provide a long list of your bug-fixes.

Alright, since this topic is about GIMP, let's compare its site against Photoshop:

The first thing on http://gimp.org:
GIMP is the GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is a freely distributed piece of software for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring. It works on many operating systems, in many languages.

Now http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/photoshop/:
Create powerful images with the professional standard.
The rest is either marketing self-praise, or pointing out specific improvements compared to the previous version, but no general description.

*Link to GIMP for Windows on http://www.gimp.org/downloads/

In their own words, "GIMP is our answer to the current lack of free (or at least reasonably priced) image manipulation software for GNU/Linux and UNIX in general."

It is a raster editor, which means that it performs operations directly on the pixels that make up the image, and not a vector editor. Other (proprietary) raster editors include Adobe Photoshop, Jasc Paintshop Pro and the humble Microsoft Paint. An alternative free editor is the KOffice project, Krita. Users wanting to edit photographs will certainly want a raster editor like GIMP. Graphic designers and illustrators may prefer a vector editor depending on their tastes.

If you're not trying to compete, perhaps you shouldn't mention them and critique their pricing in the official FAQ.

Does he advertise projects he works on in his spare time as being comparable to Photoshop?

Where does GIMP advertise? And where do they claim to be comparable to Photoshop? In fact, I found
this document, which has the "Gimp Vision", part of which includes:

What GIMP is not:

        * GIMP is not MS Paint or Adobe Photoshop

You don't think "box of rocks" is a good name? LOL.

Other poor names:
Image manipulation software: GIMP. A gimp is a cripple.
Beatles: They named their band after a kind of insect? Some unlikely names don't stop success.

I am very impressed with the fact that the Rockbox team lists all the contributors.

You've probably never seen Pulp Fiction:

"Bring out The Gimp"

This movie was quite popular with the college crowd. I was in college myself when I saw it. The GIMP, written by a couple of college students, came out soon afterwards.

Aploogies for taking so long to reply.. ISP and email account problems..

Okay. I Implied that Gimp was for graphic designers. Maybe that was the problem. :)
Or not... I don't know. I think the more people you can make happy, the better. So because I'm a creative person *and* a logic person, I'd build my apps for those, and then ask others for unfamiliar target groups.
It would be cool if the Gimp developers had that mindset, or someone would simply build another interface for their backend.

I think they feel the same way. The goal is always to make the best program possible. But does anybody ever finish a program? Adobe have not finished Photoshop. Only made it fit for the purpose of their target market. The next version of Photoshop will be better. Just like the next version of Gimp..

The Gimp Devs are working on UI matters, so it isn't a task they are ignoring, just not focusing on to the cost of other stuff.

  http://gui.gimp.org/index.php/GIMP_UI_Redesign

Commercially produced financially supported software has a different set of priorities. Polish is sometimes as important as the capabilities of the app. the dodgy bits underneath can be sorted out later.

Nothing. And everything. At the same time. :)
I simply offer more than one UI. And when proper done, I can even offer everything in between
The UI should be separated from the logic anyway. (Do you say "anyway" or "anyways"?)
Planning and developing such things is one of my hobbies. :)

A good idea. I have no idea if Gimp is a modular enough design or not, so how simple it would be I don't know. Gimp has years of code that is not likely to be thrown out unless there is a fantastic reason. And I would guess that getting a few more users is not really a good enough reason from the maker's point of view. Nothing to stop you suggesting such a thing though, along with any suggestions you have for UI design. They do have a feedback mechanism, along with some people specifically in charge of developing the UI. See above link.. And the correct word is "anyway". Your english is better than my any other language, so no problem.

If you are interested in UI design, perhaps getting involved in the Gimp project would be an interesting experience.

I never said something about a "market". Money should play no direct role here.

My fault. User base is a more appropriate phrase.

My incentive is, to make everyone happy with my projects and ideas, and not only propagate trough breeding, but trough spreading of my reality / mindset too.
Because in the end, we're just expanding biomass and information.
It's a part of my interpretation of the meaning of life.

It is a good philosophy, but how you apply it depends on the time scale you are looking at, and the available resources. I tend to be more pragmatic. You can never please everyone.

The interface may be a barrier to some, but not all. Even with a perfect interface, there are tools that are missing and functions that make Gimp useless for graphic designers, but more than adequate for other users. So an interface aimed at someone who can not get their work done without the missing tools is a waste of resources.

Cinepaint is a variation of Gimp, and it is used by some of the biggest computer graphics houses. So function can be more important than form. Cinepaint does not have a very user friendly interface either. Yet it has the features these users need, so it is used.

Someone (I don't have the needed skills) should make a website

Everything you need is at your fingertips.

Yes.

(Seriously, my wife used the photoshop trial version for a month and loved it. I asked her to spend a month on gimp just to see if the "free" version was good enough. She couldn't be happier - she can do digitial scrapbooking with all sorts of cool effects without spending money. And it's been over six months now, and she hasn't once brought up a desire to go back to photoshop.)

Photoshop Replacement - The GIMP

So the GIMP supports my $300 in Photoshop plugins now? Not. Because Photoshop is an art tool supporting artistic workflow, not a photo editor with. Color Profiles, while a must are only one of the must have features to be a Photshop Replacement. Personally, I buy Pixel and install it on Linux. It is a photoshop replacement. (Also, this example disproves the all Linux Nerds are freeloaders who won't pay for software, but I digress.)

-Labyrinthe configuration utilities and applet

Something like YaST from SuSE or Redhat's Linuxconf, perhaps? The Linux Journal (or even a Google search) will beat stinky-pedia for real, not just made in the last 5 minutes, information.

To the OP,

-Full command line environment (DOS)

Your definition of 'Full' intrigues me and I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

You have no idea what you are talking about. GIMP is an excellent software. It gives images a magical touch, which other packages cannot do.

I cannot thank enough Spencer Kimball and Peter Mattis, major GIMP developers, and also Jernej Simoni for th Windows installer http://www.gimp.org/downloads/

Not only is that story outdated and copied from another place, it is also badly researched. And Slashdot could have at least included a link to the official release notes for GIMP 2.5.

Now, the Gimp actually has three windows, The document window, the tool browser and the layers palate (actually it can have more than that, but that's the default). Now, let's suppose that I've finished reading slashdot, and I want to carry on editing my image, so I click on the taskbar button named "image.xcf". The image I was working on is maximized, but where are my editing tools? oh, they're still minimised. Back down to the taskbar, click on the GIMP button. OK, so I select the tool I want, but wait, I'm on the wrong layer. OK, back down to the taskbar, click on the Layers,Channels button, up pops the layer selector.

gimp2.4 just has two windows: the main tool window and the document window. You can break the tool window out info a set of separate windows if you like, or you can make a couple of tool windows each showing a different set of tools. Each open document gets a window too.

There's a preference for always-on-top which you can set for the image and/or the tool window if you like. It doesn't link iconise/uniconise of the image and toolbox windows though.

The development GIMP has some prototype stuff in for no-image-windows:

http://gui.gimp.org/index.php/No_image_open_specification

(Things have changed quite a bit since that page was written, I understand the current code is rather different)

This will make the tool window into a true floating window and should enable the linked iconise/uninconise effect.

This is a word for word, picture for picture copy of the original at Softpedia (I'm guessing, as the Softpedia article was posted 4 days earlier). The article linked is full of adverts as well. You would be better off reading the offical GIMP release notes.

It must be because Windows has had such a long and stable history of running on 64bit hardware.

http://www.gimp.org/macintosh/

Because the community did such a great job on The GIMP.