Personally, while I support crowdfundings like these, I didn't support this particular campaign either. I would encourage anyone who would like to see the feature to support it, but personally I won't - because I don't see the point of implementing painting-specific features in GIMP. If you need a really advanced and good digital painting software, there's always Krita, which is specialized and geared towards painting/drawing, but GIMP's strength has never been in specialization - it's more an all-around, well-rounded general-purpose image editor, and I don't think GIMP should stray too far from that. There are many things I'd consider more important for GIMP than mirror painting.

Krita is probably good on linux but it nearly crashed windows. This leaves Gimp as the only viable digital painting software available. All other digital painting software tries to emulate natural media and I personally don't see the point in that. The Gimp community is too full of people who want to see their own gimp use supported to the point that they look down their noses at other gimp uses. I personally want to see all gimp uses supported including painting (my bag) and photo enhancement (not my bag) Having said all this, most free software seems to be hobbies that have become something useable and I therefore don't see why people want money for them. If you want money, make plugins for Adobe and leave Gimp alone. ( the usual donation system I have no problem with at all but I get the impression this is more than that and it dirties what Open Source software is all about )

This is incorrect to a point of insult.

Ramon Miranda is #1 contributor of the new default pack of brushes and tools presets in GIMP 2.8, also properly credited for his work. Prooflink: http://www.gimp.org/release-notes/gimp-2.8.html (yes, the official release notes).

Now, don't close that release notes tab and read below: "The Smooth Stroke feature from GIMP Painter was ported to GIMP.". Is that what you call "Gimp team ignored GimPainter"? Seriously?

Also, the whole canvas rotation thing in upcoming GIMP 2.10 is the result of looking at the implementation in GIMP Painter, then doing it properly in upstream GIMP. How's that for ignoring?


Upcoming v2.8 behaves a lot better on Windows and has a working graphic tablets support beyond Wacom devices.



1. GIMP has been software useful for painting all along, with support for Wacom tablets since 1997. Yes, this isn't a typo. 1997. For the past 16 years. The whole painting dynamics feature that surpasses that of Photoshop (is that not painting software as well?) in terms of flexibility was done by a person who painted a lot, in GIMP.

That "wheel' dynamic you can see in GIMP's matrix for mapping events to brush settings was specifically done for Wacom's Airbrush pen that has a wheel to control the virtual paint flow parameter. Maybe you think people use that pen to poke in their ears or noses, but to the best of my knowledge it's used for digital painting.

To add even more confusion to your understanding, what GIMP is and what it isn't, the team is interested in supporting MyPaint brush engine in the future.

2. Making it a plugin simply won't work. This kind of changes isn't pluggable in GIMP. So in terms of GIMP's architecture that's like saying "You don't really need the left eye, keep it optional". When non-destructive editing comes, there might be a way to use 'mirror' GEGL op as a layer effect, and even that is debatable. But here and now it's either a core feature or it doesn't exist at all.

Where do you people get all these amusing notions about GIMP?

It's lovely to hear you say Gimp is a painting tool too. I seem to have been the only one fighting that corner so far.

prokoudine, you are quite correct with regard to the contributions that David Revoy and Ramon Miranda have made to GIMP, and the influence that GimpPainter has had on GIMP's brush development (I had thought I'd posted a similar "rebuttal" but must have got distracted while researching the exact details of the situation).

Nonetheless, with regard to

Not everyone understands the intimate details of GIMP internals or its development. They might not know the differences between tools, plug-ins, and modules -- all they see when they use them is dialogs that look quite similar and are left to wonder why they can't do what they want. They may not understand things such as acyclical directed graphs or why incorporating C++ code into the GIMP source tree would be foolhardy; they just see features such as adjustment layers and paint dynamics in other programs and want them for GIMP (and not realizing that work is already being done or has been done implementing such features).

As far as the perception that GIMP developers are not interested in GIMP as a painting program, I could point to over a decade's worth of comments by some of GIMP's core developers justifying such an inference. Comments such as "Like it or not GIMP is an Image Manipulation program. It can not and will not be a painting application" or "painting is never an objective in itself in GIMP" or "GIMP is an Image Manipulation Program; painting is just an extremely versatile means of image manipulation, not an end goal".

Even the current product vision statement makes no mention of "painting" per se, nor do any of the covered user scenarios address any actual painting activities.

Now to be fair, there have been more developments and improvements to GIMP painting features over the past few years than in any other area, and there are obviously developers who have been diligently contributing to this and are apparently interested in GIMP's utility as a paint application; however, there is what at best can be called an inconsistency in GIMP's message on this front.

Maybe it's time for the GIMP developers (and designers, architects, etc) to recognize these achievements and embrace painting as a valid "use case" for GIMP. The work is being done, a significant proportion of the users welcome it, so why not officially incorporate it into GIMP's purported "product vision"? If the developers of these new GIMP features are feeling slighted by a lack of recognition for their contribution, I submit the problem lies not with some random posters on a users forum but by the way the topic is presented by the GIMP project itself.

Wow, well said Saulgoode.

@saulgoode

You make both excellent and, frankly, horrible and illogical points. But if I start discussing that (or worse -- what counts for a painting app), we are going to end up knee deep in misery and sour grapes. So let's not go there.

Instead what I'd like to know is how an average gimpchat.com lurker expects the team to deliver news about goings-on in the project. Shoot

Frankly i too have memory of the same " decade's worth of comments by some of GIMP's core developers justifying such an inference."

Happy to know that is changed even if was any official statement about this change AFAIK
so it should be not surprising if many didn't noticed , yet the fact you refer in your previous message are quite convincing


How i or others may imagine what expect a average lurker ?
I'm mostly interested in news regarding major changes ,but obviously the exact definition of major changes is highly subjective

You are trying to understand the words literally. Just say what you personally expect, that's all

Me personally I see any additions that give the user more control over the image as a good thing whether its perceived as paint or photo related. I think that narrowing a program to a painting mind frame is limiting,
so is
thinking about photos only, perceiving all images as images welcomes innovation and the best possible results..

Quite frankly I think the line between art application and photo applications is virtually non existent now days and many artist benefit from a full featured image editor.

photo manipulation restoration etc. is not much different from painting yet using different tools to create an Artistic Image. Movie Posters and magazine ads are a prime examples of how often the lines blur, even symmetrical
painting might be used in photo touch up's and enhancements such as adding shadows in blending modes on areas like cheek bones etc or things like make up etc.

Labeling something as painting or photo editing is to limited compared to the possible usage for various features.

If GIMP2.10 has canvas rotation it will be a very welcome addition. wonder why such
feature isn't mentioned in GIMP's roadmap.

Well, the dev team could periodically release statements through gimp.org to be included on their news page (maybe they do a little of that already). Any news or announcements will surely be re-posted to pretty much all the active GIMP related forums & blogs. I don't think many new GIMP developments go unreported or undiscussed on this site.

Normally, when GIMP users are under the wrong impression regarding a topic, someone will usually point it out and engage them in discussion to clear up any misunderstandings. Some attitudes are a matter of perception, such as whether the GIMP devs are fully committed to moving in a specific direction and we know that a person's perception is their reality. Information or lack thereof, forms perception.

Well, what they should be doing if they expect to follow the latest happenings with the project is visiting gimp.org, or Libre Graphics World , perhaps occasionally peruse the Graphics Planet blog aggregator.

But I suspect the majority of GIMP Chat lurkers (members even) are satisfied with what they learn about the project here in the forums, from members who more actively follow the above news sites, subscribe to mailing lists, watch Bugzilla, and perhaps even visit the #gimp channel on Freenode. With the occasion exception, this works out fine. Rarely are GIMP announcements missed and though misconceptions may be formed, they are typically corrected or at least discussed allowing each of us to weigh in.

What are your thoughts on the matter?

I'm that average Gimp Chat lurker. I'm also completely definable as an end user. If you come at me with code I will likely try to hit you. No offense, it's reflex. I learned a lot from these lovely people here in this forum and I'm still learning.

As far as gimp development is concerned, I'm really happy with what I got right now. Any additions or perceived improvements, from my perspective, are icing on the cake. I use gimp for all kinds of things. Sometimes it's painting, sometimes it's texturing, sometimes I want to draw a funny mustache on a friends Facebook profile pic. Gimp does all the things I want it to do. Gimp made me a few bucks over the course of our relationship. I love my gimp. If gimp suddenly went paint specific I'd be sad, but if painting was completely not an option, it would be equally as devastating. It's just such a versatile tool, it's hard to define what it should have and what is bloat. Your bloat is probably my necessary prerequisite.

None of this has anything to do with crowdfunding though. I'm not a big fan of it. I like the old fashioned 'if you like this product, please donate' button. Humble pie. I was raised that way. I mean what's the deal with that. If the monetary goal isn't met the feature is not developed? Are we going to miss out on functionality unless we pay? And if not, why not just keep going back to the donation button on the gimp website.

Maybe I'm being kind of slow, I don't know, gonna go crawl back under my lurking rock.

+1

why not? exactly this is the point!
the donate-button is allways there, 24 hour's the day!
there was a poll on gimpusers with the question: would you fund and why, generally or only for your own needs
and surprise, surprise most of the people would only fund for a feature of their own needs
yes sir, this is the real spirit these days: "me"

the BIG point is that button will not crowdfund nothing neither may be used to finance a particular feature
Behind this chose are excellent reasons , but in my opinion this leave space and would be completed by synergistic alternatives

But back to the case even if i am very interested to a tool for symmetry and mirror painting, ..if you saw my art you may imagine that few could be more interested then me

Yet i am not convinced by that proposal, if i had 1000$ to donate i will
at least first i will try to contact Dan Ritchie ,the developer behind PD pro and Howler that follow (follow, didn't contribute, except a couple of script for the glua plugin) with some interest gimp , to ask if could transfer his experience of similar tools (howler and PD pro have killer symmetry tools) on gimp, obviously realising the code with a license compatible with gimp GPL

and if negative (but you never known if you don't ask ) are several other developers that already created similar or better tool on different apps that i would consider
and honestly when come to finance features i don't trust "crowdfunding" but only prizes in front of result ,
as to say in case
"1000$ are ready ,
and would be given at soon a the symmetric tool is ready, the modified code released and a beta version compiled and tested , and test don't show relevant bugs , neither something broken in gimp by the changes"

Of course i am a bizarre character with bizarre idea...

I've personally donated money to the GIMP project.

And I still say there's nothing wrong in asking for money in order to implement a specific feature. It's a win-win: the project/developer gets funding, the users get a feature they need, everyone is happy.

After all, that's pretty much how open source development works in any case: individual developers "selfishly" work mostly on features that they consider important for themselves. What's wrong with that? Open source code is produced, and it ends up at least potentially benefiting everyone in any case.

Crowdsourcing is just an extension to the same model. It allows users who don't know how to code themselves to contribute financially, by paying some developer to develop a feature that they want to see in the software.

I just want to clear up a few details in case I was in mind when you wrote this.

!. When I got involved in the debate, my post was part of another thread in which it was said that thousands of dollars were being asked for. This sounds to me like a scam as I can't imagine any Gimp feature costing that much. I also can't imagine the core developers using something just because it has been paid for.

2. My comment about people wanting their own field supported to the detriment of other fields wasn't aimed at developers. I was referring to users, some who post here on Gimp Chat, and the overwhelming drone, drone, drone, has been "why should we bother supporting painters" I'm sorry but I am totally sick to death of such downright selfish attitudes just because these people aren't painters themselves!

Ya know what? I am sick of this thread. We are never going to all agree with others, so we are just going round and round and round until the sticks start to come out.

Oh dear... I'm facepalming all right, sir

First of all, about that money. Are you familiar with the concept of standard of living? People need a different amount of money to live on in different countries. The whole western CG industry is neck deep in problems, because there are cheap VFX houses in e.g. India, and few governments subsidize VFX contracts (USA doesn't, for instance). Jehan currently lives in New Zealand. It's not a cheap country.

Next, about the cost of developing features in GIMP. What with my limited imagination and all, I can't think of any other reason you said that other than because you've just descended to Earth from another planet where waving a hand in the air for, like, a few seconds produces 1bln lines of code, finetuned user experience and a total 0 of bugs. In that very case I could see why you can't imagine any feature costing that much. Here, on good ol' Earth, however, everything takes time and effort.

Here's a fun fact you could have known. Every GSoC student gets $5,000 for a successful project which is officially 3 months of work (but given all the work that needs to be done upfront, I'd say it's really more like 4 months). Since 2005 the GIMP team had maybe two dozens of students working in this program. Is that a scam as well?

And, hey, let's make it even more fun If you think it's a scam, that you'll have to conclude that GIMP team are scammers as well. After all, wasn't the campaign promoted on gimp.org? Or maybe the team was viciously deceived by some guy whose contribution was "merely" fixing bugs hand over fist?

The thing is, unless you know for a fact (and you don't) how much work is involved exactly, and what kinds of changes need to be done in the core to make this kind of a feature possible, you can't seriously claim if it's a scam or not.


Alas, I have to repeat my question: where do you guys get these amusing notions about GIMP and its team?