I wish somebody would tart up GIMP, because its UI really is terrible. It's like someone tacked it on as an afterthought.

The next release is going to be in a single window, instead of bits floating around. There's lots to dislike about GIMP, it is what it is.

Yeah, it's a year in the other direction now. :S

Have they published an updated estimate for when it's actually coming?

I have it installed currently. You can install it currently if you like because it's open source.

You also have to remember that the team of developers working on GIMP is essentially this big: 1.

That'd help - Pixelmator on the Mac has floating windows and it annoys me there too. But, it's not just that - it's that the palette contents are so big.

Because it's all scriptable (right down to the UI) there are various re-hashes of GIMP. Including that one which re-arranges the UI to match PS as closely as possible. Which I don't use because it's just replacing one fucked UI with another.

I can't install it currently because it's open source, I can install it currently because a preview release is made available.

Things can be open source without having preview releases, and can have preview releases without being open source.

(And before you tell me I'm being pedantic there, it's not, it's being accurate. Pedantic would have been pointing out that GIMP is part of GNU and thus Free Software, which as you know is different to Open Source (and probably a contribution to why it's shit; I saw a video recently where RMS said he didn't care about software being good, which would have made me slap the twat if we were in the same room.))

Anyway only one person working on it is stupid. It's too big a package for that.

I also found this:
http://www.chromecode.com/2011/02/why-gimp-28-is-not-released-yet.html

Which can be summed up as "Gimp 2.8 isn't ready yet because we have a shit project structure which results in lots of developer turnover and nothing ever getting finished."

Which I guess is another reason.

Martin needs to fix the fucking source control, get a proper branch structure and make sure everyone follows the standard practise of feature branches, and revoke write access from anyone too stupid to follow such simple instructions.

I also found this, which is kinda cool (as a general progress tracking / what's left thing), and also suggests there's only two known bugs left, and thus the preview release should be pretty stable:
http://tasktaste.com/projects/Enselic/gimp-2-8

So I might actually go give it another try. Later, because I'm doing stuff now.

You can install it because it's open source. The source is open, you can download and compile it. This is what it means to be open source. The problem here is not that you're pedantic, it's that you are shit at it. Free Software is by definition open source. Not all open source software is Free Software. The Open Source Definition and what the FSF would term Free Software are pretty much completely compatible. They are not describing different things, they are describing the same thing from different perspectives, with different priorities. Which leads on to... I doubt very much he did. I suspect what he actually said was that functionality and features are not what he prioritises when determining what is 'good' software. For Stallman, Freedom comes first - it is a prerequisite for 'goodness' of software. He looks beyond the mechanical and has philosophical and political criteria for the 'goodness' of software.

Here is an Abe Lincoln Spider :C

While I agree that using raster applications for vector drawing is intrinsically illogical, the developers have to an extent fed that illogic, by including tools (such as text and drawing) that possibly shouldn't be there. The fact that they can't do it usably is the sin, not the expectation of users that it should 'work' intuitively.

 

And drawing a vector in one application, exporting as an intermediate file, and importing into another application is a PITA. A workable/non-crashable version of 'live update' is more usable, but the most intuitive approach is to have it all there, in one application.

His wording was more specifically along the lines of "I don't care if software is good. It has to be free, but it doesn't have to be good."

Which is exactly the problem, and why a lot of people see the stuff as buggy shit.

Freedom should come first, but unless it's also good then it's not going to help promote the cause.


Open Source ultimately means that binary releases must be accompanied by relevant source (and ability to build).

There is no requirement of any Open Source license that development take place in public nor that (binary or code) preview releases are made.

For OS projects to get contributions it makes sense to do that, but it's not something that is only or automatically enabled by being open source.

Why? Or How?

(I don't see the illogicality.)

Aye, I agree entirely. But I think part of the problem is that Photoshop is the default standard for raster editing of all kinds and it's not really very good at most of those tasks. It's good at what it's good at (pro-level graphic design production) but, due to rampant piracy, used for everything.

Yes, and I'm sure it was in response to some question where a context was provided for what constitutes good. Anyone with a modicum of intelligence will realise that he, obviously, doesn't want shit software. He just has different criteria for what constitutes 'good'. And you're still not getting it. He doesn't separate 'Free' and 'good'. Free is a prerequisite of it being good. Then as it gets more functional, it gets better. But if it's not Free then he's not interested at all. And that's fine, that's his view. He's not wrong, you just disagree about what constitutes 'good'. No, it really doesn't. It means what the OSD says it means. Which can't be boiled down to a sentence as it's pared down about as far as it can be in the OSD itself. The first part is a meaningless claim, once something is distributed you have to make the source accessible which all but necessitates 'development in public'. The second part is an irrelevance. What the fuck does a 'preview release' have to do with anything. What I said was that since GIMP is open source you can download the source and compile it yourself if you so wish.

I think the piracy and 'used for everything' are different issues, not linked...other than by people's inability to grasp what a tool is intended for possibly being linked to their level of morality.

 

The funny thing is that on DPR, most people complaining about Adobe's licensing changes are using PS for photo editing, when there are better applications out there. PS shines when you want to do something more that colour correction or cropping, especially in terms of montage or advanced image editing. I'd be surprised if more that 10% of PS users use it to the best of its capabilities.

Again, I agree. WHAT IS HAPPENING TRUFFY I DO NOT UNDERSTAND.

That one guy that works on GIMP.

He could take the 2.6 source, work on his own machine and/or with collaborators, without any of them telling anyone what they're doing, without any of them releasing any source to the outside world. When Martin's happy he can release 2.8 version.

It would still be open source.

There is no requirement for him to release incremental versions.

If he only made available the source at each major release, I could not go and get a snapshot of the source now and build it, but he would still be working within the open source model.


The other side of the coin: Microsoft could suddenly decide to start doing nightly IE10 preview releases.

They don't need to release the source to make it possible for anyone to go get the latest snapshop and installing it right now.

And the odds of Microsoft ever releasing IE as open source is slim.


So going back to this:

The reason I can install it currently is NOT because it is open source.

It's because the developers have chosen to make it possible for others to get the latest version of the software.

Doing this makes sense for open source but is not required by open source, and nor is being open source a pre-requisite for doing it.

Shut up, it's a good enough summary.

You can add "and must not discriminate" to cover points 1,5..10 if you really want.

You are all insane.

YouWe.