It’s a sad time for Ubuntu users. Canonical has announced that it is removing the GNU Image Manipulation Program, aka GIMP, from the default Ubuntu installation routine.
Canonical hosted its biannual Ubuntu Developer Summit (UDS) last week in Dallas, Texas. I was one of many open source software developers who attended the event and participated in the collaborative process of planning Ubuntu 10.04, the next version of the popular Linux distribution. An important part of the 10.04 roadmap that emerged during UDS is a tentative plan to remove the GIMP, the GNU Image Manipulation Tool, from the default Ubuntu installation. Although this decision is viewed by some as controversial, the reasoning behind it is valid. The removal of a niche professional graphics editing tool reflects Ubuntu’s growing maturity as a mainstream platform for regular users.
There is good and bad in this decision. I was quite irate when I first heard about it. It seemed like a stupid idea to remove GIMP simply to save space or avoid confusing newbies with an app that was too powerful. But the more I thought about it, the less angry I became.
GIMP will still be available, but users will have to find it in the Ubuntu software management tool and install it themselves. This won’t matter much to experienced Linux users who know what the GIMP is and how to install it. And it probably won’t matter much to newbies who have no use for such an advanced tool.
But it may make it more difficult for those who are experienced with other image editors but new to Linux to find this one. A few people might even mistakenly conclude that Linux has nothing available to compete with better-known apps like Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro.
When I write Linux reviews for my blog, I always harp on distros that don’t include GIMP as part of the default install routine. Without it, there usually isn’t much included in the way of image editing tools, and I consider that category of application to be very important to most desktop Linux users.
I use the GIMP mostly for editing screenshots, but occasionally for other things as well. Whenever it’s not available and I have to install it manually, I get extremely annoyed.
It’s a sad time for Ubuntu users. Canonical has announced that it is removing the GNU Image Manipulation Program, aka GIMP, from the default Ubuntu installation routine.
Canonical hosted its biannual Ubuntu Developer Summit (UDS) last week in Dallas, Texas. I was one of many open source software developers who attended the event and participated in the collaborative process of planning Ubuntu 10.04, the next version of the popular Linux distribution. An important part of the 10.04 roadmap that emerged during UDS is a tentative plan to remove the GIMP, the GNU Image Manipulation Tool, from the default Ubuntu installation. Although this decision is viewed by some as controversial, the reasoning behind it is valid. The removal of a niche professional graphics editing tool reflects Ubuntu’s growing maturity as a mainstream platform for regular users.
There is good and bad in this decision. I was quite irate when I first heard about it. It seemed like a stupid idea to remove GIMP simply to save space or avoid confusing newbies with an app that was too powerful. But the more I thought about it, the less angry I became.
GIMP will still be available, but users will have to find it in the Ubuntu software management tool and install it themselves. This won’t matter much to experienced Linux users who know what the GIMP is and how to install it. And it probably won’t matter much to newbies who have no use for such an advanced tool.
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