The word "gimp" in the english language has some 'negative' connotations.
- It has something to do with some sexual fetish.
- It's an "ableist slur".
However GIMP, with all uppercase means GNU Image Manipulation Program, it's an acronym.
I think it is kinda dumb to expect GIMP's maintainers to change the name of the program, because its acronym has some negative connotation for certain viewers.
And let me remind you, if you searched right now "GIMP" in all uppercase, every top result is about the program.
It has become clear that everywhere it counts, "GIMP" has surpassed "gimp".
"gimp" as an ableist slur sure seems like one of those slurs people read about on the wiki list of slurs, and then forget about basically 2 minutes after.
And as a slur, I sincerely doubt disabled persons are actually offended by the name of a program on their computer.
Who are the people offended by this? It's already obvious, keyboard warriors with basically nothing to do.
If you are a disabled person, and are actually offended by "GIMP", send me a private mention post on the fedi @samuel@libremercs.dev
The GIMP name has been around for what, 26 years now? It'd be kind of crazy to rename a project, which is very widely recognized by this name, to something else.
When the original authors chose the name, I sincerely doubt that they knew of the slur meaning to the "gimp".
For something as irrelevant as the meaning of the name, people sure do like fighting over it.
Now imagine this for a second:
- We're ~20 years into the future.
- The fediverse is recognized as a household name.
HOWEVER! The word "fedi" is actually a widely offensive word against federal workers. In contrast how 90% of the pop doesn't know "gimp" as a slur, everybody in the world literally sees "fedi" as a widely offensive slur against federal workers. What now?
Is the Fediverse expected to change their name so as to no longer be a slur agains federal workers? Or do people recognize how "Fediverse" was not named intentionally to be a slur.
TL;DR; It's kinda dumb to expect GIMP to change their name over something as irrelevant as the meaning of the name; GIMP name was most likely not chosen intentionally to be a slur; If "fedi" became a widely offensive slur, would the Fediverse be expected to change its name?
Cya.