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.

[–] skisnow@lemmy.ca 4 points 4 days ago

Honestly I think some people just want to be offended. "Oh I can't use this in class because of the name" is complete nonsense. If the faculty are going to immediately assume you're doing weird sex things with the kids then you've got bigger communication problems.

[–] l3mming@lemmy.world -3 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (2 children)

outside US and UK (and few others)

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 colleagues, let alone higher-ups.

[–] black0ut@pawb.social 3 points 4 days ago

The acronym was chosen as a reference to a character in Pulp Fiction.

And just India has a population of 1.4 billion people, and it's a single country.

[–] nbsp@programming.dev 2 points 4 days ago

in corporate environments i've worked in in aussie for decades, the worst you can expect is a chuckle at the name.

yes, i'm sure there are more prudish organisations.

but it's 100% wrong to equate all english speaking nations to the US dip shitery.

getting the average graphic designer to consider anything other then adobe is like getting IT to consider anything other then MS... that is holding adoption back far more then anything to do with the name.