This comes up every time GIMP is mentioned. To be honest, outside US and UK (and few others) for the rest of the world the word GIMP has no negative meaning (no meaning at all). So, yeah, maybe who cares about the name? Well, change it if it’s really a problem. But, is it really a problem?
Fair point is GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) doesn’t sound as a reasonable acronym. I would maybe find a better acronym, but changing the name itself feels like changing the name of the town of Bra in Italy or the town of Fuck in Austria, or why not, even the town of Love in Sweden… Good luck if we need to only find and use names that do not offend anybody in any language of the world.
Krita, the main FOSS competitor to GIMP, feels a much worse sounding name to me. By the way, i read GIMP with a soft G (like a j) not even as English speakers do pronounce it.
If we’re considering just the US, Canada, UK, NZ and Australia, that’s at least 470 million people for whom the name is problematic. As an enthusiastic Australian user, there’s no way I would recommend a program called GIMP to my higher-ups.
Unlike the towns of Bra or Fuck in Austria, the acronym GIMP was chosen specifically because of its edgy double meaning.
Being sexual doesn’t automatically make it offensive, it just makes it unprofessional. As software that is seeking widespread adoption, its acceptance in professional environments matters. I could make a program called Skrotum if I thought it was funny, but I wouldn’t be surprised when people are hesitant to recommend it to others because of the name I chose.
What makes it offensive is that it’s a slur for handicapped people. That’s the origin of the BDSM term and the use that was popularized by the character in Pulp Fiction that was specifically referenced by the creators of GIMP.
Why should they change the name just for the vanity of Americans who have a dual meaning for the word, and make it difficult for the whole rest of the world to find tutorials and documentation going back decades?
It’s not just awkward for Americans, but for the entire English speaking world - at least 470 million people. How can anyone seriously recommend a business use a program called GIMP? It is a massive hurdle to adoption in the corporate world. They should change the name, or at least create a business-oriented alias.
I mean my business has no problem using it here in the motherland of the English language…?
Any time we talk to a client about it they are just happy to hear that we’re using software that doesn’t ingest their work into AI, crash in the middle of consultations, and produces working files that will be usable forever.
I do wonder how much of this is the seeming aversion to context that a subset of Americans seem to have. The meaning of words varies by context, that’s like, a normal thing in English. If I said in a meeting that I’d been “pissing about the office whilst waiting for John to be done in his other meeting”, that doesn’t mean I’d been urinating on the carpets!
Edit: another funny piss example - if I’d spent my holiday learning to jetski should I avoid telling colleagues how I’ve discovered I enjoy watersports?
A gimp is a sex thing in one context but that’s clearly not the context one would be discussing in terms of software, so why does it matter?
Are they going to upgrade the name as well?
This comes up every time GIMP is mentioned. To be honest, outside US and UK (and few others) for the rest of the world the word GIMP has no negative meaning (no meaning at all). So, yeah, maybe who cares about the name? Well, change it if it’s really a problem. But, is it really a problem?
Fair point is GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) doesn’t sound as a reasonable acronym. I would maybe find a better acronym, but changing the name itself feels like changing the name of the town of Bra in Italy or the town of Fuck in Austria, or why not, even the town of Love in Sweden… Good luck if we need to only find and use names that do not offend anybody in any language of the world.
Krita, the main FOSS competitor to GIMP, feels a much worse sounding name to me. By the way, i read GIMP with a soft G (like a j) not even as English speakers do pronounce it.
If we’re considering just the US, Canada, UK, NZ and Australia, that’s at least 470 million people for whom the name is problematic. As an enthusiastic Australian user, there’s no way I would recommend a program called GIMP to my higher-ups.
Unlike the towns of Bra or Fuck in Austria, the acronym GIMP was chosen specifically because of its edgy double meaning.
That’s a US defaultism issue
It was created in the US and named in specific reference to the offensive meaning of the word, so I would say that makes it pretty relevant.
Why is a sexual term automatically offensive?
Being sexual doesn’t automatically make it offensive, it just makes it unprofessional. As software that is seeking widespread adoption, its acceptance in professional environments matters. I could make a program called Skrotum if I thought it was funny, but I wouldn’t be surprised when people are hesitant to recommend it to others because of the name I chose.
What makes it offensive is that it’s a slur for handicapped people. That’s the origin of the BDSM term and the use that was popularized by the character in Pulp Fiction that was specifically referenced by the creators of GIMP.
Because he lives in a fucked up puritan place.
Why should they change the name just for the vanity of Americans who have a dual meaning for the word, and make it difficult for the whole rest of the world to find tutorials and documentation going back decades?
It’s not just awkward for Americans, but for the entire English speaking world - at least 470 million people. How can anyone seriously recommend a business use a program called GIMP? It is a massive hurdle to adoption in the corporate world. They should change the name, or at least create a business-oriented alias.
I mean my business has no problem using it here in the motherland of the English language…?
Any time we talk to a client about it they are just happy to hear that we’re using software that doesn’t ingest their work into AI, crash in the middle of consultations, and produces working files that will be usable forever.
I do wonder how much of this is the seeming aversion to context that a subset of Americans seem to have. The meaning of words varies by context, that’s like, a normal thing in English. If I said in a meeting that I’d been “pissing about the office whilst waiting for John to be done in his other meeting”, that doesn’t mean I’d been urinating on the carpets!
Edit: another funny piss example - if I’d spent my holiday learning to jetski should I avoid telling colleagues how I’ve discovered I enjoy watersports?
A gimp is a sex thing in one context but that’s clearly not the context one would be discussing in terms of software, so why does it matter?
English is diverse language and each regional English have their own offensive world that have different meaning in different English speaking area.
Maybe you should meet more Indian English speaker and Singaporean English speaker. Heck, Australian English invent various offensive word.
Yes but we don’t use them in professional contexts.
There is no Dickheadsoft, no Drongo Ware. We haven’t call any software C.U.N.T.
GIMP means the same thing here and it’s just as unprofessional.
My point is that due to British colonialization, English is now a diverse language that have diverse new word and regional meaning.
GIMP in English Asia doesn’t have bad connotation. Not in Singaporean English, not in Indian English.
Making one standard of English is just reeks language colonialism.
No it’s just regular PR.
We avoid 4 in products due to negative connotations in Asia, even though it means nothing here.