this post was submitted on 17 Dec 2025
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You went on all this rant and forgot the og?
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GIMP is an acronym for what's arguably the most descriptive name possible: GNU Image Manipulation Program.
But the acronym totally destroys the understandability of the program name and instead is understood as "an unpleasant or stupid person" (https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/gimp).
If you look at similar commercial software you get names like MS Paint, Photoshop or Lightroom.
They should have stuck with "GNU Image", "GNU Photo" or maybe "GNU PhotoEdit".
When I teach old people how to use GIMP, we all laugh at the name, I explain what it stands for, and then they don't forget it.
This is what confused me about OP, because I think of this as the application (ie program, or tool) not the library. So to put the name of the tool back into a library, seems backwards.