Linux.com

"When you choose to place your work on a publicly accessible server, and when you decide to place it under a free software license, you give up the right to control what other people do with it." What about moral rights? Under most continental-european legislation, these cannot be given up, so certainly cannot be overriden by any open-source (or proprietary for that matter) license.

If the meaning of Oxygen's artwork is to express the greatness of the KDE desktop, then using them inside GNOME might well be a moral rights violation, as a "mis-use" of the protected work. IANAL though.

#

Europe != world. Get that through your thick skull. Same goes for the snotty Americans.
Disclaimer: I am an American.

#

WTF? Linux.com, please use something to make newlines visible! I hit enter a few times and they disappear when I post. Stupid coders.

#

It's called HTML.



See? Works fine for me. ;)

#

What kind of silly comment is that?

PS: I agree though the whole bulletin board system here SUCKS

i dont think i will use it again if it aint changed... cant they make all comments EXPANDED if
there arent many? I HATE to click on them

#

If the icons are supposed to be KDE only, then the license should reflect that with a written restriction. There is no implicit restriction on the grounds that Oxygen is a KDE associated project.

#

Yeah but they didn't express that. So the use was completely legal, a sharing and openness that we *believed* was the developers intention. We are not mind readers.

#

"Ugh, stupid GNOME people, Oxygen is to express the greatness of KDE, you can't use our precious artwork on your miserably foul desktops, ugh".

Making their work as popular as possible should be the first priority for every artist and coder. OK, maybe second. First should be to make it as high quality as possible.
And making restrictions that not a single user benefits from is against the spirit of open source, no matter what moral rights you imagine it hurts.

#

You have no idea what the term "moral rights" means.

"Moral rights" refers to the creator's/creators' right to be acknowledged (or at least, to not be denied) as the creator of something. There is no other right attached to this, either expressed or implied.

#

Moral rights? What a load of shiat.

Well, this type of stuff is to be expected. I'm getting tired of these OSS evangelists/zealots/idiots standing up and thumping their chests about how great they are and how bad closed-source software is, then only to turn around and find some excuse to close their source. I mean, seriously, go to an OSS project, fix a bug or put a feature in and try to submit it to source control. If you don't have a bunch of karma with the maintainers, it isn't likely to be included in the source tree. Suggest a feature and be summarily dismissed as not knowing what you're talking about.

OSS can bite me.

#

Morality only functions at the individual level, legality entered the scene to handle inter individual situations.

The nazis though it was moral to burn jews
The dudes at Nuremburg thought it was moral to hang the nazis
And I think it is morally right to right you off as an idiot

Morality is something the pope can stick in his pipe and smoke. (God damn socialists mingling morals with legality)

#

You get no bonus points for using a Nazi/Hitler analogy, and a bad one for that matter, in a discussion about icon licences. The two are completely different ideas.

#

IANAL also. But we don't need to. It is just about all chipping in work. The best float by their own virtue. And best is subjective. I agree with the article. Sharing and improving, is what gives the best results. If gnome used kde's icons there wouldn't be any problems. (Except of course from making fun of gnome from kde's users in all forums for years to come :-) )

As they say:
Copying is the sincerest form of flattery.

#

I think that the article writer (and several of the commenters) do not get a central distinction: legal != right. I mean, it's legal to lie, it's legal to abandon your wife and a lot of other things are perfectly legal without them being necessarily right. And the previous comment is probably pointing this out: Its legal to take the icons and do anything with them and no one is disputing that, the question is whether it is right.

That said, I very much disagree with where the previous commenter actually found the problem. The problem with the icon theme IS NOT that it is meant for the gnome desktop (or that it was packaged by a person outside the project). The problem is that the theme is immature and unfinished and this might give the original artists a bad reputation. F.e. see what happened with KDE 4 --- the project released a beta version which was quite unpolished and a lot of people started complaining about the quality of the work and even made a lot of, in my opinion, rude comments. I am not surprised if some people (the oxygen artists) want to avoid this. I am more surprised that a lot of the developers still develop in the open. If we (the users) keep forgeting about civility and only concern ourselves with what is legal, then it might well happen, that the developers will get fed up and close up the development. And that would be unfortunate, although perfectly understandable.
Jonathan Verner

#

sounds just like osCommerce

#

Truly open = public domain.

#

License applied to a file != development process.

#

I think you're 100% correct on the icon issue, Nathan. Illustrators are sort of dumb though - they have a hard time grasping licensing sometimes. I know because I am one. However, the GIMP UI Brainstorm project *does* listen to feedback, as you would know if you read their recaps of user submissions. They have made a smart decision in not opening the floodgates of endless UI criticism by allowing just anyone to join their leadership. Many of the best open source projects do this. In this case, there are way too many self-proclaimed "UI designers" out there and they all have different ideas. I think their current blog format is genius. Also, while you're at it, why don't you attack every open source project with a SABDFL? Boo hoo, Mark Shuttleworth won't return my phone calls! It's not an open process! ...Seriously.

#

"When you choose to place your work on a publicly accessible server, and when you decide to place it under a free software license, you give up the right to control what other people do with it."




Now that is just plain wrong as it applies to the Oxygen Icons case.



If the author released his work into the public domain, then and only then does he waive his rights as to what other people do with it. However, the Oxygen Icons theme were not released to the public domain. They were released under open licenses yes, but those licenses depend on copyright restrictions to be in place as well. As the original author is the copyright holder, despite the fact that he released his work under open licenses, that does not diminish his control over his own work in any way.



Next time please take the time to read and understand the relevant licenses before making sweeping generalizations like this.

#

You apparently missed the point of the article's author. Once the content is released under an open license, people can do whatever they want with it under the terms of the license. The copyright holder still retains all rights to do whatever he wants with his work, but he cannot retroactively invalidate the open license. He could stop distributing his work under the open license, but copies of the work obtained under the open license remain perfectly legal. So, in effect, the copyright holder doesn't have control over what people do with the work that has already been released under an open license, besides restrictions placed in the license itself.

#

You are correct in saying that the author retains copyright when releasing under a free software license. However, when doing so he binds subsequent users to the terms of the license under which it is released if they wish to use the copyright materials. The terms of the two licenses under which Oxygen Icons were released permitted the use made of them by the packager so the authors, who got to pick the license under which they released and who could have also not released at all, have no beef. If they wanted more restrictions, they could have put them in the license.

#

The license applied doesn't change the authors' rights. It grants the licensee rights.



Nate
[Modified by: Nathan Willis on November 03, 2007 11:24 AM]

#

"As the original author is the copyright holder, despite the fact that he released his work under open licenses, that does not diminish his control over his own work in any way."



What? That's exactly what it does. Licences determine what control an author maintains and what control an author cedes.

#

You'd be surprised how many open source projects are like this. They essentially only use outsiders for free bug fixing or maybe free documentation writing, not feature or UI improvements. That means the only ones essentially making feature decisions are those who are good at fixing bugs, who may not be that skilled at understanding the users or the interface.
Open source without open development & participation is pretty meaningless.

#

Nobody has stopped anyone participating in the Oxygen project -- the only thing the authors don't like is people running with their work and releasing it before they thing it's ready. Personally, although the license clearly allows it, I would be pretty pissed if someone grabbed the current Krita trunk code and released it as if it were done. I would not call that "participation" at all.

#

You would be pissed at someone doing what your license allowed them to do? I'd say the problem is you, then, and not the users of your code who are doing exactly what you've given them explicit permission to do.

#

Yes, I'd be pissed. Because it would be _my_ reputation that would go to pieces. Just like Linux Format reviewing alpha versions of applications as if they were final releases makes the reputation the authors go to pieces. Just grabbing unfinished stuff out of a repository and releasing it as if were the finished, final thing is unethical. If you don't understand that, you very obviously have never worked on an open source software project.

Boudewijn Rempt

#

Your reputation will suffer for being an idiot who doesn't understand simple licensing concepts. "I give everyone the right to do these things with my images. Then when they do, I'll get all mad at them."

#

Oh c'mon, LEGAL != RIGHT, can't you grasp that. Btw., using strong language won't make your argument more true.

#

Or, as others would say, "I'll fix it myself!!" - What I mean is, well, if they won't let you play with them, then You should just say, "Fork you!" - The thing is, the developers are developing. Submit something. Put in a suggestion. But like we don't want to drive geniuses away from these important projects by overloading their suggestion box. As someone said, "Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards, for they are subtle, and quick to anger." I guess I feel that the developers have a right to develop without being forced to constantly consider a barrage of suggestions, different styles, cowboys, Indians, etc. Besides, Doesn't OPEN SOURCE mean the source is open, as in open to you to go ahead and fix it yourself?

#

You can write good code with thousands of programmers all around the world because executable code's only job is: "just work". It is a rational and logic process. But with artwork, well... this is a whole new world. Artwork is an aesthetic product, which is purely subjective and we need a coherent look for kde4.

I know that many of you won't agree with me, but I think that you have to consider the inherent differences between machine code and artwork.

#

I suggest you look at the XPM format. It is artwork, expressed as C code. Similarly, SVG uses a specific vocabulary in an XML framework. Either can be the "paintbrush" of the artist.

#

I suggest you look at any company in the games industry...

#

Whether or not it is like code is irrelevant. They used the GPL to release it (As well as Creative Commons). The GPL is the same license used for code. If the authors felt that the artwork should be treated differently than code, they should have licensed it differently.

#

About the openness of gimp: way back in 1998 my now-ex-wife tried to volunteer to write documentation for Gimp (she had been a professional technical writer at Compaq until we moved to Germany). The gimp team made the process so difficult that she eventually dropped out. They simply didn't want outside help, or the had no appreciation of the time and effort volunteers wanted to put in.

#

I wonder if there are practical, management-related issues that lead some developer groups toward a more closed approach. I can imagine that a tight-knit (and relatively unchanging) group is more in keeping with the standard approaches to management we are accustomed to from our workplaces and schools.

I'm in agreement with the author that more openness is good, but in an effort to be understanding, perhaps we should be asking the leaders why they feel compelled to run their projects the way they do. Maybe there are unappealing management challenges presented by the relatively new, open paradigm. Hopefully other developers could help them overcome these challenges.

#

The thing is, when you repackage the Oxygen icons you're not _participating_. You're leeching. You're not giving anything to the Oxygen project, you're just pre-empting their release. And that's not behaviour. Participation in the oxygen project -- for instance by creating new icons -- is not closed to anyone.

#

By your definition, anyone who downloads a piece of open source software without submitting a patch or comment is also leeching, but I don't hear many people complain about that. If a maintainer of a piece of code puts up icons in a public repository with OSS licenes, they become subject to public consuption and redistribution. And if a developer chooses to withhold a feature from the public in favour of a "big bang release" for anything other than a technical reasons, he deserved to get usurped, and that's exactly what happened.

#

As the author seems to have miss the point of the two blog entries. Neither of them is claiming that whoever else did release those icons didn't have the right to do. They just pointed out that it wasn't nice nor polite to do it before the release of KDE4. "Closing the process" would have happen if the artists has choose as a conscequence to use a private repository.

About the Gimp UI redisign brainstorm, firstly, isn't the whole idea behind the brainstorm to be opened ? Or have I missed something ? Secondly, being "open" doesn't mean that you have to accept everybody's conntribution, is there any subversion/git/cvs/... repository for any open source project where annonymous have "write" rights ? If you want to be part of a team, you have to prove you deserve it, I don't see any reason why it would be different for a "UI design" team than for a "coder team".

All in all, one of the very few disappointing linux.com article :( I hope it's just a single mistake and that the quality of information will remain at a higher level in the future.

--
Cyrille Berger

#

Finally a contributor with some sense.

#

I totally disagree about the Oxygen issue. Sometimes human feelings come above licenses ok! How would you feel if you worked your butt off creating icons for KDE 4, just waiting to see people's faces when they ran KDE 4 for the first time, and then somebody took the icons from SVN and made an iconset before KDE 4 came out. It would be absolutely anticlimatic and depressing for the creator. And no recompensation or apology is going to undo that

#

You're just as insane as the other "evil icon thieves": the icons were released under licenses that permit other people to take them and use them. So- duh! Use different licenses if you're all worried about people "stealing" your work. Rampant stupidity is not a defense.

#

This is the kind of stupid attitude which leads to projects closing up and making it a pain in the ass for outsiders to contribute. The whole "You released it under an open license, so now I get to do whatever the fuck I want with it and screw you!" attitude simply pisses people off and makes people wonder why they're working to help such losers.

Honestly, if the Oxygen designers had used a closed-up SVN repository, how many of you same idiots would be screaming that they're not really developing open-source style? It seems to me what you really want is not for developers to develop the FLOSS way, but to allow you to rip them off and pre-empt their releases for your own personal benefit.

#

The question is, why have they put their icons on a public SVN-Repository if they wanted to release their work at a given time? They should have put them at release time on a public SVN with the right license. But of course I understand that the developers of the Icons are upset. They wanted to release their work in an other way, an if the other guy who has released them before only copied their work and hasn't added his own ideas I agree with the original developers that someone only wanted to express himself with other people work.

#

Nathan, you are totally missing the point in both cases.

Imagine someone publishes draft of your article as a real article. Would you appreciate that? Of course not. No sane journalist would (as journalist and ex-editor I do know what I'm talking about). Extrapolate that to icons and you will see why you were so much wrong.

Now, on GIMP. See, gui.gimp.org was created as result of usability research from October or Nobember 2006. Everything that is published there relates to that work. Why would Peter want someone who didn't take part at the event and who doesn't know everything they know to start changing something in the wiki? Why would you want to enlarge amount of decision makers which would only lead to consequences and portponing actual decisions? Do you really want that kind of bad project management? Why?

Both issues are not about openness. They are about respect and good project management. If you can't understand this, if you fail to do a proper research and talk to actual developers, my advice for you is to consider quitting journalistics.

Alexandre

#

What part of "the licenses of the icons allow other people to use them" don't you understand?

As for the Gimp, you don't understand the difference between "contributors" and "decision makers." It's your own understanding that is lacking. Joe is right; closing the door to contributors is foolish, and it certainly isn't an open process.

#

Which part of "we asked people using them here in there to kindly remove in name of the freshness of upcoming KDE 4" don't YOU understand? Can you actually see difference between license and respect? Looks like you can't. Pity.

Now on GIMP again. Contributions are done via blogspot-based pool of ideas. Everyone is welcome to share ideas. But gui.gimp.org is for decisions. Do you have a problem with it?

#

The difference is that Nathan didn't put the draft of the essay on a public server with a licence that says 'Please take me, change me and share me with as many people as you can!'

It seems to me those icons were released the day they were put on that server.

#

Please read the second mentioned plog posting (http://wadejolson.wordpress.com/2007/09/12/oxygen-redux-can-do-vs-should-do/) as careful as possible. Twice or thrice, if required. Until you see that the question is NOT about license. Then, also, if you are lucky, you will see that none of the bloggers actually _attacked_ anyone.

There a lots things in this world that are perfectly legal, but still not considered cool. Referring to license in this case is just defending ego with justifications. No more, no less.

Alexandre

#

There is no morality in this world. Only cold hard law (or violence) to enforce your personal views on others. If you still believe in warm fuzzies, you'd better apply cold hard law to protect them, otherwise others will rob them from you. If a license just says share-and-share-alike and it does not restrict beyond that, you can whine whatever you want about morality, do's and don'ts, but at the end of the day nobody cares about your warm fuzzies. Especially not, if you yourself codified the means to rob you of your warm fuzzies in a legal license.



The reason we have licenses at all is that man is the worst predator on earth, so bad that it destroys its own habitat. Only regulated group force through law and enforcements agencies keeps us from trampling all over our fellow humans and some still believe that man is one big happy family singing round the camp fire. Go figure...



r_a_trip

#

judging from your words you definitely must be an american. ignorant to the fullest but to stupid to find Europe on a map.

#

No, I'm European. Dutch to be exact. I simply stopped looking at the world through rose colored glasses. Man (myself included) is just another species of predator and there is nothing lofty about "eat or be eaten", but unfortunately that is the way it is.

#

And I have yet to meet the first journalist who publishes using the GPL license.
So, let's not compare apples with oranges here...

#

You are getting it wrong (again). Please read this attentively: WE ARE NOT TALKING ABOUT LICENSES. WE ARE TALKING ABOUT MORALITY. I put it as capitalized not to shout at you, but to make you actually read it.


Noone ever said icons were published illegally. What Oxygen guys actually wrote is "We know you can do it. But please don't until it's finished and ready to be used". This is neither attack, nor sign of non-openness -- as Nathan tried to repesent it. This is a pure human thing, not a legal case. This is about people talking to each other, having respect for each other and collaboration.


This is where Nathan failed. And I would like him to either start doing researches and talking to people or stop giving his non-GPL rants for articles.


P.S. If I was a Tango artist, I would feel angry about being mentioned in opposition to Oxygen project. They are all friends.

Peace. Alexandre

#

The quit being a moron and release the images under a restrictive license or copyright, instead of getting mad at someone who does exactly what you gave them permission to do. Sheesh, were you born stupid or do you work at it?

#

No, you are talking about morality. This (factual) article deals with licensing and what happens when you make bad licensing choices.

#

So, are you going to criticise Linus and the 'closed' development process of the Linux kernel as well? Believe me, you don't want me to have full and un-fettered access to Git to make any old changes I like, I don't have a clue! FOSS may be open to view and open to copy and use and fork, but it is also a meritocracy, you have to prove you're good enough to contribute, usually by starting at the bottom and working your way up. Don't like it, then start your own project or fork. Ever considered the GIMP guys may have had more people working on it than they could properly coordinate or were so far advanced in the process that adding someone else would actually slow things down? Ever heard of the mythical man month?

On the icons, the artists had a vision they were trying to realise, and were asking people to wait until their work was completed before distributing them. Imagine how Shakespeare or da Vinci would feel if they invited you into their studio for a sneak peek at their creative process, and in return you started distributing rough incomplete copies of their works before they had finished? Just because you have the right to do something doesn't mean you always should. If you want to be part of the FOSS community, then there's certain unwritten rules you should follow when participating in the community, or benefitting from the works of the community, the primary one being respect for the people who are giving up their personal time and effort for your benefit. Show them the repsect their efforts deserve, respect their simple wishes, and they will continue to contribute and help grow the community. Treat them with selfish contempt or righteous expectation and you risk driving them away and losing the benefit of their efforts.

#

Sorry, meant to add my name, seeing as I'm happy to stand behind my opinions, and my participation in nd contributions to the community.

John Layt.

#

P.S. For a Feature, i would expect a reputable journalist to interview the parties involved and give them the opportunity to explain themselves. This reads more like a random blog rant, just slightly better written and more polite.

#

I run into this all the time with Open Source. SQL Ledger is a prime example.

#

I don't visit this site that often, but some time ago, there was a nice comment page, were you could choose to view all comments nested on one page. Now this stupid modern new page expects me to click every comment to read it (and if there's something like the old option, it's hidden too well). Ah well, more time to spend elsewhere...

#

You have to register, it's free btw, and then you can set it to flat - which I like better as well and probably should be the default.

#

Well, packaging the oxygen iconset for gnome allows those gnomers to test it out. The more people testing, the more people will contribute, finding bugs and stuff, resulting in a better final result, in this case that'd be mostly gnome-compatibility. That should be quite trivial, as both kde and gnome now use (more or less?) the same icon-packaging-standard.
Of course, it would have been better if the packager made it clear that it's still not a finalized set, and recommended the users/testers to send in their comments to the oxygen-team, but I don't consider repackaging the set so early is a bad thing, as this is the way open-source works best.

#

People seem to be missing an important point here, Crispy didn't just take all the Oxygen icons and release them without accreditation. Heck, he didn't just release all the oxygen icons WITH accreditation, he released a mix of different icons ("primarily Crystal Project and Oxygen") and released those, hes also made additions and changes and even changed other things such as the font used.

Most people here seem to be acting like he just did a straight port of Oxygen and abandoned it, hes been making changes, adding bug fixes for things that crop up and trying to improve things all around. Also please spare me the "freshness" part, they still aren't even final..so how can he reasonably spoil the "freshness" when they are publicly available and will likely be changed in any case?

#

Nathan's right about the icon set. About the Gimp redesign, not sure.

When you make your work available for public use under an open source license, it's no use crying when someone actually goes ahead and uses it under the terms of the license. Berating people for doing that would be going against the whole spirit of open source. Laying down terms and conditions in the license, and then laying out more terms and conditions (`show respect', `don't release before we do') once people actually start using the work, is simply not feasible. How do you expect millions of people from all over the world, with different cultural backgrounds, to know what you would or wouldn't like them to do, if you don't explicitly tell them at the outset, in the license?

About the Gimp redesign, I've got mixed feelings. On the one hand, I really want a small team of people to create a coherent and eminently functional user interface for Gimp. I want it to feel like it anticipates my workflow and makes it easier for me. Microsoft got it right with Office 2007, no matter what anybody says. On the other hand, the UI team can come up with the new look, but there's no reason a mass of coders can't implement it. Unless they've already allocated a fixed team of people to do the coding. But even then, someone from outside can come in with a wonderful patch that speeds up the program ten-fold, or removes the pesky bug that causes a crash once every blue moon.

Maybe Peter Sikking really doesn't need anyone new in his team to do the work of creating the redesigned UI. But what if someone outside the team comes up with a stupendous idea? It looks like then can easily send it in, and get credit for it. So ultimately, I think it's probably best to let the UI team go about it in their own way. The new Gimp deserves to be an elegant, beautiful program, not a design by committee.

#

I hate all that "open-source" GAYS that releases code/other sh*t under open/free licenses and then tries to restrict use of it! Just their icons as any other OPEN/FREE product! Let them think about what to open and what to close!

#

Just USE i mean

#

STUPID HOMOPHOBE GO BACK TO YOUR CAVE WHERE YOU BELONG. This is 2007 where such stupid ideologies are NOT WELCOME.

#

Check it out.

#

All,



I read the original post and some of the comments, and thought I might throw my $.02 in.



All Open Source developers are a bit visionary and to a degree a zealots. Everyone is protective of the "pet" project.



What makes me an expert? I do not consider myself an expert at anything because can always find someone that knows more about stuff than I do.



I do have a little expertise in the area of volunteer work though. I have been a Cubmaster for a Scout Pack for around 7 years. All my Leaders and parents are volunteers without exception. So this experience has enlightened me to a degree on visionaries and zealots.



Over the years the Pack holds events that require a "chairperson" to organize things. Some events are large enough to require two "chairs". Many of the largest disagreements we have are about these events. If everyone keeps their cool, the only thing that happens is that another person jumps at volunteering for the next event. If they don't keep their cool, we lose volunteers, parents, and unfortunately Cub Scouts. As a Cubmaster I spend a lot of time trying to "settle" things so we don't lose Scouts.



It really boils down to the act of volunteering. If you care enough to spend some of the precious time here on planet Earth taking on work for no pay, then you are probably convinced of the value of that work. What you volunteer for is not the issue. Scouting or Software writing, it is all the same. Both are done out of the goodness of someones heart. That goodness is what makes the difference.



So, while the persons working on the release set of icons for KDE 4 have their "baby" and will be protective of their "vision", the person trying to make a new set of icons in a theme for KDE 4 may have a different vision of how the icons should/can look but, is still doing the work as a volunteer.



As the new theme should be considered benign intervention, I don't see an issue. Having typed that, I can see that the KDE developers would like to get the original set out first and don't want them "improved" just yet.



Truthfully, this whole thing shouldn't even be an argument. Let the dust settle and go on with the good work. Keep your eye upon the donut and not upon the hole.



If you think things are made difficult with volunteers, try getting a lot of things done without them.



Still volunteering after all these years,



gnulinuxgeek

#

Maybe it's practical for some very popular projects... If the GIMP team accepted all feature request in their bug tracker they'ed most probably drown... GIMP UI Redesign team is probably also a very popular project, maybe they really don't need more developers...

#

Sad, oh yeah that license is just for looks, you actually cant use it. If developers do want there design to be public domain they should not work in the open domain. Its easy, do the math......

justin at kalland.org

#

Just try to use the program, it is totally unusable- the UI is mind boggling stupid and the program has not cought on with photographers.

I wouldn't even waste any time talking about this stupid little program. I will never go anywhere it needs to fork and move on with a typical open source development

#

My thats a mighty big violin you got there punk.

#

I agree with you. It is totally unintuitive. I tried to switch to it in Windows but I would never try it again.

#

It is not unituitive,,it is ONLY because you are used to the EXPENSIVE photoshop and likely are a zealot for its cause. its the same garbage that 3dmax or maya users complain about with blender..and its just as lame ;)

#

I used GIMP for years, and i had to switch to Photoshop because gimp was totally unusable for photography. GIMP never really seems to go anywhere, I think its one of those programs that could use a major rewrite..... how about 16bit color channels and proper support for various RAW files, I could come up with a longer list but this isnt the place. I've used The GIMP in windows and linux A LOT, but The GIMP really lives up to its name on OS X.... it runs like it was beat in the head a lot as a child.

#

Gimp's certainly not garbage, I use it loads, have done since its early days, mostly under Linux. Raw files can be handled via dcraw externally and/or the plugin mechanisms. The UI, I've got used to it, I find photoshop no more or less unintuitive, I got used to that, too. On OSX, I use "gimpshop", a fork of gimp with a "more photoshop-like UI", not because of the UI but because I found a packaged version which installed with no fuss and I was in a hurry. It's far less of a lumbering beast than photoshop when just whipping together web images etc. The absence of photoshop's complicated and optimistic colour management is, for these kind of uses, a positive advantage, too - things acually come out the colour you expect. HOWEVER, there's one major, unforgivable flaw with gimp, and I've somewhere gained the impression that this is an ideological invariant for the main development branch, and that's the absence of anything better than 8bit/chan colour. For film or print work, I have to use cinepaint, or resort to photoshop, gimp is simply not designed to be up to the job. Thankfully, with OSS, however "closed" the main dev coterie might or might not come across, *anyone* is free to do what the cinepaint people have done, fork and take things in a direction more useful to themselves, as often and as radically as they like. For all it's phenomenal power, slickness and expense, we can't do that with photoshop. So while, as a developer who'se been around for far too long, I do find the little cliques and personality cults which emerge a bit annoying, you always get that, and folks get things done. At the end of the day if you can do something better then just do it, and you'll make *someone* happy, at least.

I think the icons rant here has probably more merit than the GIMP one, given human nature and so on - the license seems clear enough. As someone else said, worldwide cultural differences and all manner of things should make it pretty obvious that if you want to incorporate some kind of courtesy grace period into a public domain license, then you should actually incorporate it, not assume people will guess it.

#

GIMP is the most unintuitive program in history. I can say that from experience. I have used and necome proficient with the following 2D/photography programs, Deluxe Paint (2,3,4,5,5.5), Digipaint 2, Image FX, Art Department Professional, Photogenics (1,2 and 3), Brilliance 1 and 2, Atellier, Artrage, Photoshop (4, 5, 6, CS, CS2, CS3), Corel Draw (8, 9, 10, 11, 12) , Corel Paint (every partner version to Corel Draw), Corel Painter 8 and 9, Pixen, Director, Illustrator, Canon DPP. I am sure there are a few programs I have forgotten in that list over the decades.

I know a thing or two about art software, and I have probably forgotten more about art software than you have ever learned about art software. The GIMP sucks! The GIMP is why I, as an artist will not switch to Linux. It is the ONLY reason I cannot switch. It needs FORKS!

#

I feel bad that I must agree with this assessment. I used GIMP for a while, then my wife got Photoshop Elements (the low cost consumer version) for some projects, and I was more productive from the very beginning. Seriously, what is "Python-fu"? In general, it's time for GNU to drop the MIT in-joke way of life.

I want to use GIMP but it's too damn complicated.

#

Wow. The previous argument, summed up: I used more graphical software than you, therefore you suck.