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Interview with Øyvind Kolås, GIMP developer (2017)

116 points by ibobev

by senko

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Most of the comments here talk about the GIMP UX. Fair point, but misses the article entirely.
> [Øyvind] is the maintainer of GEGL and babl, the color engines of GIMP. His work was instrumental in (among many other things) the long-waited non-destructive filters implemented in GIMP 3.0
The interview is about Pippin's background (fine arts) and current (as of the time of the interview) work, and in some details about the graphics engine underneath GIMP (GEGL).
FWIW, it doesn't touch on the UI/UX side at all. So even you Photoshop lovers may find it interesting :)

by smallstepforman

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I must be the only GIMP user that has never complained about the UX. But I have never used Photoshop so I’m not fighting muscle memory.

by pinkmuffinere

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I love gimp, it is the only “heavyweight” image editor I ever learned to use, and that choice has saved me so much money in software subscriptions! Thankyou maintainers!

by iamnothere

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I don’t often do much with image editing, so GIMP has been perfectly adequate for me for decades. I’ve never rented a copy of Photoshop and don’t care about it.
I’ve noticed small but consistent improvements over the years. People who complain about the UX should just go use Photoshop. It’s fine. Layers work well, retouching and filters are easy. I don’t really understand the complaints.
I’m very glad GIMP exists, and I hope it continues to make FOSS haters cope and seethe for the next 50 years. Keep whining about the name please!

by Aldipower

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What a mindset. Deep respect!
"And it turns out there are a couple hundred people already who would like me to continue writing code and sharing it publicly and openly. That at least sustains me roughly on the level of unemployment benefits in European countries. And I hope that this will even slightly increase – I will not have a Silicon Valley level software developer salary, but I’ll have enough money to cover my expenses."

by addend

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On my Windows PC it takes GIMP 15 seconds to start and get into a state where I can edit. It loads palettes, initializes and what not, according to the splash screen text. That's too slow, so I never use it for quick image edits like crop, scale or color changes. But that in turn has the effect that I never learn the unusual UI. Which means that for more complex task I avoid it too. Other zero cost tools like the web based Photopea loads super fast and mimics the UI of leading image editing suites. It thus beats GIMP on both quick and easy tasks and more complex tasks.

by nanis

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> 2026-02-22 by GIMP Team
I am confused
> This interview took place on February 4th, 2017

by sinnickal

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by jccx70

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by aaron695

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by richard_chase

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by yanhangyhy

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by jrm4

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" It is strange how the media exploration experiments I do in code seem to not really have much cultural worth in society."
Not to me, and -- this is a thing I keep harping on -- love it or not, I can explain why.
You live in a society, and as a result you have to do a little bit of homework on names, and what they mean, and how they are percieved by the outside world. It is SUPER interesting to me that the first bit of this interview is literally ABOUT NAMES, and that the following point is missed.
GIMP is a terrible name. Atrociously bad. And I still strongly believe it is a reason -- it might even be the PRIMARY reason -- why such an otherwise great tool did not grow in popularity.

by VimEscapeArtist

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Maybe it's the GIMP developer who should be interviewing someone who can build a decent UI and actually understands UX.