this post was submitted on 03 Jun 2024
97 points (100.0% liked)
Technology
37356 readers
231 users here now
Rumors, happenings, and innovations in the technology sphere. If it's technological news or discussion of technology, it probably belongs here.
Subcommunities on Beehaw:
This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Surely anyone who feels that it’s an urgent problem can make a fork which is fully identical in every way except for the logo and name and branding
Since the amount of effort that would be required for that would be infinitesimal compared to what was already done to make the software
And then produce all these good things which you say are being held back
Or, wait, did you mean you wanted someone else to do that because you feel that it’s super important enough to insist that someone else should do it but not important enough to do yourself?
As I recall someone made the same lame argument about the name being divisive, a fork was created called Glimpse and it fell on its face not long after it was formed. Things like this are a waste of energy, nobody cares that it's called gimp.
I mean, just because you don't care doesn't mean nobody does.
If I was running a school where students with physical challenges attended, I would not feel comfortable asking them to use software called Gimp, so I would just avoid it.
That said, I would avoid it anyways in favor of Krita, I'm just saying.
Plenty of words have multiple meanings, but I rarely think of them when I'm using a word to mean a specific thing. I know the meanings of gimp, but I never think of them when using GIMP; perhaps because it's capitalized and I always assumed it stood for something (and it does).
But anyway, and more importantly than that, what you describe is a problem that you might run into with any word.
A small subset of the world population can view it as an insult, but for the vast majority it means nothing. Sort of like the word "negro" in Spanish, which some English people take offense to when they hear it. I even searched "gimp" in 3 different search engines, and the first 2 to 5 results were always the GIMP. Most people have no other concept for the word.
Let me put it this way: you say you'd favor Kira, but how do you know that there aren't some kids in Egypt, or Russia, or someone else in the world, that take offense to the word "Kira"?
I understand. You are correct that, in the right context, pretty much any word can be offensive or insulting to someone. So I consider it my responsibility, once I am aware of this context, to try to be inclusive because I like to have as diverse a group of people around me as possible, it builds strength.
So if "Krita" ended up being derogatory to Russians or Egyptians or whatever, I would absolutely be cautious about that, yes. Especially if I was working with kids.
Off course, that's fair. This was a while ago, but I believe my point was more generally about whether to rename an existing popular application. I think it's commendable that you make that effort to protect the kids you work with.