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GIMP is gearing up for a massive upgrade (www.gimp.org)
submitted 2 months ago by to c/opensource@lemmy.ml
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[–] 11 points 2 months ago (12 children)

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?

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  • [–] -3 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (10 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 months ago (3 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 months ago (2 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 months ago* (1 child)

    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.

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  • [–] 0 points 2 months ago (2 children)

    So in order to make it less awkward for ~500M people, we should make it more awkward for the rest of the 7.8B people.

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  • [–] 0 points 2 months ago (1 child)

    How would changing the name make it more awkward? Giving up a huge market for no reason other than old nerds crying about a change.

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  • [–] 0 points 2 months ago

    Everyone knows it by that name, even in non english speaking countries.

    They themselves gave a good explanation. They'd lose brand recognition, they'd expose the name to scammers using it to sell or distribute their own software, and years of tutorials, guides and books would instantly be harder to find and outdated.

    It makes no sense to give up all that, and to force such a change on the whole world, just because some speakers of a single language don't like it.

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  • [–] 0 points 2 months ago

    I'm in the UK. I use it as my primary image editor on my work computers. Should we be avoiding using LaTeX too because in a different context it's a kink thing?

    It just seems such a weird thing to be prudish about in this day and age. English words are regularly contextual and in a business environment why would one go to the NSFW context as default?

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  • [–] 0 points 2 months ago (1 child)

    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.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

    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?

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