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Some naggy hoes are bitching about how "the name is a slur for disabled people" on mastodon.
They've been bitching about that since the beginning.
Fun fact: The first public testing version of GIMP was released in November 1995
In October 1995, the movie Pulp Fiction was released, featuring a character named "The Gimp".
It's just a typical UNIX-y backronym with a pop-culture reference.They chose the name because they thought it was funny, and they did not realize it was derogatory. They did nothing wrong then, they just did not know.
Once it was brought to their attention, they had two options: they could stick with the name that they now know is derogatory and hurtful (and prevents it from being installed in some places) or they could change it.
This is not an isolated problem in the FOSS community. I was trying to roll out Linux VMs in an organizations, and I got called into a meeting because gigolo popped up a message and the user was confused and upset. Yes, it is a funny pun (it mounts what it is told to), but it ruined Linux for that organization and they went with Windows.
This is not an isolated problem in the FOSS community
Correct. It isn't a problem at all for FOSS.
Still baffles me how many don't understand that FOSS doesn't follow capitalist market logic.People make a thing in their free time and give it away for free.
Then other people tell them:
"What you're making is wrong. You should change it. Then more people would be willing to use the thing you're giving away for free."An organization pivoting hard on their entire software stack because someone didn't like a word in a message somewhere... someone powerful in there didn't arrive by competence alone.
Considering there's no incentive for a developer donating their work for free to add thin-skinned users to the masses demanding features and fixes, I can't say I disavow them. Anyone can just fork their project to change the name, and handle the hassle.