Slashdot Mirror

"Could cut years off some of the development time for projects."

I understand Rust is excellent software, but why give it a name that sounds degrading. "Rust" is something you don't want to happen.

Other foolish names:

"Lisp" is a speech impediment.

"Gimp" is a person who limps or is lame.

Why restrict technology names to only 1 alphabet? LaTeX uses Greek letters, also, and requires two paragraphs in the Wikipedia article to explain the name.

Or... Go with the flow? The next time you create open-source software, call it "Garbage"? Or "Feces"? Or maybe "Vomit"? Or, invent a new word. Maybe "Flonorba-gorba"?

Please give us some concrete examples where you think OSS is lacking in features, performance, stability and usability and a host of other metrics.

You do realize that this entire story is about a feature Chrome already got active by default and Firefox barely is on the drawing board right? And it'll probably go like this project from 2010:

Electrolysis is the working name of a Mozilla project which goal is to re-arch good old single-process Firefox into a multi-process one. The idea's been around for some time now, all the more so since competitors like Google and Microsoft have released multi-process versions of their browsers!

They finally caught up to Chrome.... in 2017. I'm not saying it's a fair fight, but sometimes OSS is waaaaay behind the times. I was going to use GIMP as another example, but it looks like in 2.10 they finally got 10+ bit support done. That only took 18 years from conception. But don't worry, I'm sure they'll catch up to Photoshop any day now...

https://www.gimp.org/

Why do technology people and groups give foolish names like "Rust" to what they create?

"Lisp" is a speech impediment.

"Gimp" is a person who limps or is lame.

Why restrict technology names to only 1 alphabet? LaTeX uses Greek letters, also, and requires two paragraphs in the Wikipedia article to explain the name.

Or... Go with the flow? The next time you create open-source software, call it "Garbage"? Or "Feces"? Or maybe "Vomit"?

That's because the Chrome and Firefox web browsers and the Thunderbird mail client have enough of a budget for multi-platform development and testing.

I use the same image editor on all three platforms. I use the same network analyzer on all three platforms. I use the same video tools on all three platforms. I use the same office suite on all three platforms. I use the same shell, the same command line tools, the same interpreters on all three platforms.

The claim that native applications equal only one operating system is plainly false. It's pointless trying to defend that position.

MS Paint has the advantage of opening insanely fast compared with more recent tools, thanks to it being programmed for computers of another era.

If you just want a temporary place where to paste an image from clipboard, Paint is a much better target than Paint.net, whose startup time is slow as molasses.

For me The Gimp opens in about two seconds and if I want a rudimentary paint program such as KolourPaint which is really on par with "Paint" it opens in less than one second.

Actually there are plenty of simple paint programes that are every bit as good as Microsoft Paint, not only for Microsoft operating systems but Linux and Mac os's as well.

two seconds? what kind of magic man are you? for me about 20 seconds. even before I installed all my brushes and fonts and palettes it was nowhere near 2 seconds to boot up. closer to 10 on a fresh install. don't get me wrong. I love gimp. but it's not nearly as fast to boot up as paint.

MS Paint has the advantage of opening insanely fast compared with more recent tools, thanks to it being programmed for computers of another era.

If you just want a temporary place where to paste an image from clipboard, Paint is a much better target than Paint.net, whose startup time is slow as molasses.

For me The Gimp opens in about two seconds and if I want a rudimentary paint program such as KolourPaint which is really on par with "Paint" it opens in less than one second.

Actually there are plenty of simple paint programes that are every bit as good as Microsoft Paint, not only for Microsoft operating systems but Linux and Mac os's as well.

23bit color shouldn't be long now https://www.gimp.org/news/2017... , and the 2.9.x dev builds are pretty usable.

Let's just see how many of those features I can move over from my (mostly very portable) existing image manipulation code. And how quick. Today serves as the starting line. Assuming age doesn't kick me nipples north in the short term, and no other unforeseen disaster shows its ugly face, I expect to be raising my figurative middle finger in Adobe's direction quite soon as these things go.

In other words you want to compete with people like Affinity Photo which sells for $US40 or even The GIMP. Both of which are mature projects. So what are you going to do to differentiate yourself in the market?

I'll be the first to say that there's really no good equivalent for some applications like Photoshop, Illustrator, etc. For those you'll need a Windows box. However, the vast majority of people don't those applications.

You can always find alternatives to most computer applications and in many cases, the alternative while not being feature to feature identical are good enough for most people and in the case of Linux are usually free and well maintained.

For "Photoshop" the Gimp is pretty much identical and for "Illustraltor" you could use Inkscape . Of course, you will always get people who say "But it is not the same as [name your Windows-centric product here]" then it becomes rather pointless even attempting to point out the alternatives.

Well, not yet it doesn't...

GIMP v2.8 still sucks compared to Photoshop. Where are any of the Layer Effects???

You're welcome.

Like many business owners tied to microsoft, he is screwed. The options are: pay up, or go out of business.

On the bright side, the more people who move to linux the more time and money will be poured into development and support.

Given the option, which OS would you rather use Photoshop on? Mac, linux, or windows 10?

Does using The GIMP on a Linux distribution count. After all it costs you nothing and some distros have it by default. In addition, you get free updates when they are available and you can check that the new updates are not going to cause problems. The only thing you will have to do is learn how to use the GIMP tools compared to the Photoshop tools (there is allot of similarity) and there are many web sites dedicated to assisting you.

"But I need Windows for..." *SMACK!* NO! You don't!

LOL! You should typeset it. The Gimp works really well, although most popular Live distros have it by default.

But I still like this one for anime fans and this one for dog lovers . :-)

I must be getting in early as there is no whining so far about GIMP being far inferior to Photoshop. What real world work can be done in Photoshop but not GIMP? I'm not trolling, this is a serious question ... often obscure seldom-used features get compared ... out there in the world of practical productive work, what are the true shortcomings?

Well in the stable 2.8.x series you only have 8 bit support, not 16/32 bit as far as I know. That alone makes it pretty unsuitable for any serious photography work. From the bullet points of the 2.9.2 development release last year:

16/32bit per color channel processing

So they finally did it in 2015... well except it's not stable yet. They've only been talking about it for like 15 years. The other big one is non-destructive edits, basically Photoshop will let you do many operations that you can tweak later because it'll reapply them to the original image. That way you're not stuck with a linear undo-redo history you can actually modify an operation you did several steps back. The rest are as you say obscure functions, but much like Excel many people need a few of them so they add up. And often it's not can you do it, but is it equally intuitive and powerful. Five minutes extra here and there add up.

Personally I've found Paint.NET on Windows and Krita on Linux to cover my needs and somehow they feel more right to me. Photoshop is more of a "I'm sure it's powerful if I'd only bother to learn it" tool, while GIMP... I feel it's just trying to be odd for no particular reason, it's not that it doesn't work but it feel like they have their own pet UX theory. Like the DVORAK keyboard of editing tools.

The current end-user version of GIMP is 2.8.18. Per the GIMP Web site home page, version 2.9.4 is a development version and not an end-user, stable version. The next end-user, stable version will be 2.10. Use 2.9.4 at your own risk.

Go to http://www.gimp.org/downloads/ and scroll down about 2/3 to "Development snapshots".

Why do technically-knowledgeable give their work self-defeating names?

Rust: Happens with iron as iron becomes useless red dust.

Gimp: (1) a derogatory term for someone that is disabled or has a medical problem that results in physical impairment.

LaTeX: Use two different alphabets to write a name! Inspired by the Greek word ÏÎÏ. Sorry, Slashdot can't display those characters.

Version 2.9.2
"native support for PNG, TIFF, PSD, and FITS files in GIMP has been upgraded to read and write 16/32bit per color channel data."

https://www.gimp.org/news/2015...

...they were so bitterly reticent about it.

Are you sure about that? Single-window mode was the top "new feature" that the GIMP team highlighted in the version 2.8 release notes. It seemed like it was a feature they were excited to have, not something they were trying to quietly implement without anyone noticing.

My favorite example is "The Gimp". Aside from a ridiculous name that's not suitable for a professional environment (like a lot of FOSS). They over estimate their target audience. They assume their target audience is a non-existent Professional Photoshop Refugee group and not home users.

In the end Paint.NET is an easier to use, more performant piece of software for Windows. Though I still use my version of Paint Shop Pro 5 from 1998 cause it runs like mad on my i5.

Yes. I had a very hard time understanding the weird UI of Photoshop.
It still doesn't change the fact that some crucial Photoshop features have been lacking in GIMP for a *long* time.
I can get past the weird (and different) GIMP UI, but I cannot live without adjustment layers.
See http://wiki.gimp.org/wiki/Road...

http://www.gimp.org/ explains the situation well enough. As far as SF is concerned, they are just joining the same crowd like CNET etc. Sure it's a downer and maybe we can't do much about it except READ, understand and opt-out of the installer routines. There was one free ogg converter that forced me to download and run an installer, which installed another installer before I could actually download the program. I think I had to opt-out of 6 BHOs and other crapware. Turns out it wasn't worth the effort in the end. Fortunately I found this: http://www.boxoft.com/ogg-to-m... with no adware and an excellent piece of software. I'm happy to recommend it. So with eyes open you can wade through the crap but a lot of the installers attempt different forms of trickery that would fool a lot of people. The fact that SF has gone down that path must hurt though.

Why would LibreOffice

You do realize OpenOffice does run in a server-mode.

It's useful for doing thtings like batch-processing word documents.

Same for Gimp: " This command will start a server, which reads and executes Script-Fu (Scheme) statements you send him via a specified port. ".

...ever be dependent on systemd?

I don't understand why 90% of the crap systemd's trying to suck in (like networking). Yet the systemd guys continue to glom everything in there.

Care to run off a list of ways that "GIMP doesn't come close"?

If you are genuinely interested knowing what is in the pipe for the future of GIMP, you may be interested in taking a look at this for a summary of features that are slated for the next or upcoming versions of GIMP. You may notice that many tasks are dependant on completion of GEGL implementation (something that is definitely slated for being in the next release). Once GEGL support is fully in, significant features such as user-defined color spaces, non-destructive editing, and smart objects will become feasible, and are already planned for a future version of GIMP

Well, I *was* going to run off a list of ways that GIMP doesn't come close to Photoshop, but it looks like you've gotten a good start all by yourself.

I'd also be very happy if somebody could tell me what GIMP does that Photoshop doesn't. It's free. if it shaves man-hours off my work, then load me up with the tips. I ain't gonna switch, but I ain't above using both.

Programmatically accessible from command line scripts (if you're not hep to the ImageMagick fu):
http://www.gimp.org/tutorials/...
and other languages
http://www.gimp.org/tutorials/...

I'd also be very happy if somebody could tell me what GIMP does that Photoshop doesn't. It's free. if it shaves man-hours off my work, then load me up with the tips. I ain't gonna switch, but I ain't above using both.

Programmatically accessible from command line scripts (if you're not hep to the ImageMagick fu):
http://www.gimp.org/tutorials/...
and other languages
http://www.gimp.org/tutorials/...

If you are genuinely interested knowing what is in the pipe for the future of GIMP, you may be interested in taking a look at this for a summary of features that are slated for the next or upcoming versions of GIMP. You may notice that many tasks are dependant on completion of GEGL implementation (something that is definitely slated for being in the next release). Once GEGL support is fully in, significant features such as user-defined color spaces, non-destructive editing, and smart objects will become feasible, and are already planned for a future version of GIMP

As for things that GIMP will do which Photoshop doesn't, I can refer you to obvious fanboyish pages such as 10 reasons that GIMP is better than photoshop, but of course, if GIMP doesn't do what you actually need, then I can appreciate how any or even all of those points can be far from convincing. Ultimately, the only reason to use GIMP over Photoshop depends entirely on whether GIMP can do what you actually need. If it can, then the difference in price alone can easily be a determining factor. If it can't, well... then it can't. But that doesn't mean it never will. And you should use what you need, for now. I'd encourage anyone to keep an open mind for the future, however.

Mod parent up.

While GIMP is fine for quick edits -- it lacks essentials features that Photoshop has.

Having to use a _plugin_ for Layer Effects is _lame_. It should work out-of-the-box!
http://registry.gimp.org/node/...

Nothing inspires more confidence in a complex cryptographic system than a name like "CipherShed.'

At least they did not call it The Gimp.

So, using the post right above yours...

https://www.libreoffice.org/
http://www.linuxmint.com/
http://www.gimp.org/


how are any of these quality apps tracking, selling my data or any of the other nonsense you posted?

They say they are "free" and they don't beg for money every time you use them.
They do have a donate page on them, but you are free click "not now" and contniue to download it.
How hard is it to post something that is not free as "freemium" or "in app purchases" instead of free?

"As I said, levels of ignorance."

What does this even mean? people are ignorant when "free" games beg for money and this is not 'false advertising'?

Here's a link that could be interesting to those affected:
http://www.gimp.org/

No worries. The G in Gimp stand for GNU not Gnome. The Gimp predates Gnome by quite a lot. The only tie that binds them is that Gimp donations are handled by the Gnome foundation, which is easily changed. Read this page here:

Donating to The Gimp

instead of reusing an existing toolkit

GIMP version 0.54 (January 1996) "It had a dependency on Motif for its GUI toolkit, which made efficient distribution to a lot of users impossible."

A New Toolkit - The 0.60 Series:
Peter got really fed up with Motif. So he decided to write his own. He called them gtk and gdk, for the Gimp Tool Kit, and the Gimp Drawing Kit. Peter tells us now that they never intended for it to become a general purpose toolkit - they just wanted something to use with GIMP, and it "seemed like a good idea at the time". GIMP History

They also noted on their front page http://www.gimp.org/

In the past few months, we have received some complaints about the site where the GIMP installers for the Microsoft Windows platforms are hosted.

SourceForge, once a useful and trustworthy place to develop and host FLOSS applications, has faced a problem with the ads they allow on their sites - the green "Download here" buttons that appear on many, many adds leading to all kinds of unwanted utilities have been spotted there as well.

I've seen those ads on the sf pages as well and am not fond of them but sf doesn't offer a premium developer account that provides ad free project and download pages.

According to their FAQ:
http://www.gimp.org/docs/userfaq.html#cmyk

"It is clear from the product vision that GIMP eventually needs to support CMYK, but it is impossible to say when someone finds the free time and motivation to add it."

So they're not anti-CMYK, it just hasn't been done yet.

You are correct, the Gimp team does not distribute Windows binaries. But (in case you want one) they do have a link on their page to someone who does: http://www.gimp.org/downloads/ Blender does distribute Windows binaries, as zip archives and installer programs: http://www.blender.org/download

Download Photoshop here http://gimp.org/

To a geek there is no joke too old and stale not to get a laugh.

Download Photoshop here http://gimp.org/

LibreOffice is just as good as Office for 90% of tasks. GIMP, on the other hand, is still a dystopian nightmare compared to Photoshop, for one main reason: separate windows for everything.

Except Gimp has had a single window mode since 2.8 introduces an optional single-window mode these are the release notes http://www.gimp.org/release-notes/gimp-2.8.html here is ars reviewing it http://arstechnica.com/business/2012/05/hands-on-testing-the-gimp-28-and-its-new-single-window-interface/ the latest version of Gimp was released on Just a week ago and is 2.8.6 http://www.gimp.org/.

Although Multiple windows not that big a deal...was never a problem for me on the Mac version of photoshop.

LibreOffice is just as good as Office for 90% of tasks. GIMP, on the other hand, is still a dystopian nightmare compared to Photoshop, for one main reason: separate windows for everything.

Except Gimp has had a single window mode since 2.8 introduces an optional single-window mode these are the release notes http://www.gimp.org/release-notes/gimp-2.8.html here is ars reviewing it http://arstechnica.com/business/2012/05/hands-on-testing-the-gimp-28-and-its-new-single-window-interface/ the latest version of Gimp was released on Just a week ago and is 2.8.6 http://www.gimp.org/.

Although Multiple windows not that big a deal...was never a problem for me on the Mac version of photoshop.

Find the differences:
Latest Gimp on Windows (from Gimp site): http://www.gimp.org/screenshots/windows_crop.jpg?rand=399953416
PS CS5 on WIndows: http://www.highlander.co.uk/blog/files/2010/04/psscreen.jpg

Seriously though, the main issue with Gimp's UI is it's insistance on placing everything in a separate window; it makes it very problematic to use.
There are a few extensions for it, to make it look more like Photoshop's interface, but they still don't solve this problem.

Gimp will have full 16 bit per channel support in the upcomming 3.0. If you can't wait for that and must have it Krita already supports 16 bits per channel.

Personally, I don't understand this. It does make sense for print ads, or high end photography, but for web, it does not even make a slight bit of difference."

You could for example focus on documentation

No-one bothers in the open source world. There's no return on one's investment of effort and time.

Look at this for example: http://www.gimp.org/tutorials/Straight_Line/ - old screenshots, a mocking approach to a common question on how to draw lines in GIMP despite the fact you shouldn't even NEED a tutorial for something so basic. If this is how documentation is written for a high-profile FOSS application, then fuck it. I prefer the cold, stale but functional documentation found in more professional applications.

What exactly are they going to use the money for anyway? As near as I can tell they don't have a full time core development team and most of the donations are used to sponsor sending developers to the conference. If you are going to start working on major changes and new feature sets you are going to need full time staff to work on things which would require full staff.

Eh what? I'm using "commercial quality Open Source products" all the time. GIMP, Inkscape, Eclipse, Fedora Linux, Apache, Archiva, Maven, gcc, VLC, LibreOffice, XBMC, ArgoUML, Avidemux, Latex, Kile, KDE, Amarok, (that was a very short list of a much bigger list of software that I think are "commercial quality" and I'm using every day). The documentation is also very well.

"it's even rarer that you see actual documentation apart from "read the source" Eh what again? For example: Fedora Docu, GIMP Docu, Maven Docu, Inkscape Docu. "read the source" my ass.

What have the development method (open source) to do with quality anyway? I think you wanted to say: " It's rare that you see commercial quality hobby and in free time developed products".

The market has clearly failed to self-regulate and as a result, deserves government intervention.

The market has not failed to regulate Adobe

Their new unified transform tool should already be done and I suppose it's in 2.9. I haven't tried though.
http://gui.gimp.org/index.php/Transformation_tool_specification

Check the single-window-mode please: http://www.gimp.org/release-notes/gimp-2.8.html

A piece from http://www.gimp.org/docs/userfaq.html#cmyk:

It is clear from the product vision that GIMP eventually needs to support CMYK, but it is impossible to say when someone finds the free time and motivation to add it.

Right there is the sad problem of open source software. Here we patiently wait years for someone somewhere to have "free time and motivation". That would never work in a commercial software company.

The GIMP dead on Windows?!

The following was posted on the GIMP Website:

It's been a long time since we last had an active Windows-based developer. Consequently, GIMP has accumulated a plethora of bugs specific for that operating system. As much as we'd like to provide a smooth user experience for Windows users, we simply do not have the required human resources.

Hence, if you are an experienced Windows-based developer who is interested to help GIMP become a first-class citizen in the Windows world, please get in touch with us. Our main communication channels are the gimp-developer mailing list and IRC.

I received a copy of Photoshop Elements with a drawing tablet sold by Wacom for my daughter recently. It does seem to work. Perhaps Adobe is not improving it, but one does not expect Elements to do everything Photoshop does.

I think that Paint.net may have given way to PIXLR Editor for simple tweaking and enhancing.

There are a few Mac-only apps as well, but I gather you may not have a Mac, based on your statement about The GIMP.