It's a way to avoid admitting that the ecosystem itself is struggling. You don't get a piece of software that's "unknown" yet somehow widely mocked. Mockery requires awareness, expectations, and disappointment. GIMP is known, just not respected.
GIMP is popular enough to be a cultural reference, but not good enough to be respected, and people use it as a way to avoid talking about deeper FOSS failures. People say "GIMP isn't popular" because it lets them dodge the uncomfortable truth; that FOSS graphics software has failed to produce a modern competitive flagship.
If they admit GIMP is widely known, then they have to confront why it hasn't improved meaningfully in over 2 decades. Why it still lacks industry-standard workflows and has a glacial development pace.
They retreat with "It's not popular, so criticism doesn’t matter."
GIMP is popular, it's just not successful. It's bundled with every Linux distro, recommended in every "free alternatives" list, referenced in memes, known by anyone that's searched "free photoshop", and installed (and uninstalled) by millions. What it lacks is retention, professional adoption, and respect.
GIMP is the poster child because it's the most visible example of FOSS software that everyone knows, but nobody wants to use. It's not a GIMP problem -it's a FOSS (particularly GPL) problem.
Admitting the real issue means confronting uncomfortable realities. FOSS cannot sustain large, complex applications without corporate backing. Ideological purity often wins over usability. The community punishes modernization attempts. "Free" is not enough to attract professional developers, and the volunteer model collapses at scale.
Saying "GIMP is teh Suck!" is easy. Saying "FOSS can't produce a competitive Photoshop‑tier application" is a hard pill to swallow.
How Linux/ FOSS got some of their best software:
The Most Influential Formerly‑Proprietary Projects that Became Important to Linux
4 Comments
Racoonwithbenefits@lemmy.zip · 4 pts · 9d
madthumbs@lemmy.world · -2 pts · 9d
They're not that different. That's an excuse to divert from its technical failures. The project to fix that 'problem' has died last I knew for a reason (it wasn't a real problem).
The same types suggesting that crap are the ones that would point to Krita which is wildly different.
zbyte64@awful.systems · 0 pts · 8d
Does conviviality count as a technical feature?
chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 8d
Who cares about the gimp? The developers don’t want to make it usable. They’re happy just the way it is. If people want something usable then start a new project.
lichtmetzger@discuss.tchncs.de · 1 pts · 9d
GIMP desperately needs a UI overhaul, just like Audacity is currently getting. It's software where questionable decisions have been piled on top of each other for decades and people are afraid or unwilling to make drastic changes. The learning curve is too steep and it's just a shitty tool for new users wanting to edit their images.
I rarely use it, because doing basic things is needlessly complex. I resort to using Photopea in a browser instead, which is much easier to work with.