Suppose someone decided to create a graphic image manipulation program (similar to Photoshop).” Petter Mattis sent this message to different mailing lists on July 29, 1995. The then student at the University of California at Berkeley took the opportunity to ask for opinions about the type of functions such a program would have and the formats it would support. At the end of the same year Mattis and his project partner, Spencer Kimball, introduced GIMP. “We just wanted to know if we were capable of creating something like this,” recalls Kimball during a video call with EL PAÍS. “And we definitely weren’t,” Mattis, who is now his brother-in-law, interrupts with a laugh.
Both left GIMP in 1998 to focus on their respective professional careers. And they got off the ship without saying goodbye or naming heirs. “We left them in the lurch a little bit when we got a job,” explains Kimball. His farewell could have been the coup de grâce for the still young softwarebut twenty-five years later, that cantankerous and full of bugs —programming errors—, he’s still alive. What’s more, it is in good health thanks to the maintenance of generations of volunteers who continue to update and improve its functions. “GIMP will live on as long as there are people with enough passion to continue working on it. And we have been lucky to have some extremely passionate people, ”say sources from the developer team that is leading the charge today.
Although Photoshop is still the software dominant when it comes to image editing, GIMP is the ideal alternative for those who cannot or do not want to pay the expensive subscriptions of this program. “We suffered from it as high school students interested in computing. You couldn’t download anything you wanted, it wasn’t free. You needed money that a student does not have. And if you got the software, it was very difficult to understand why something was wrong. You couldn’t poke around and see if you could fix it,” explains Kimball.
The tool was born focused on UNIX-type operating systems, aimed at users with a more technical profile, but over time it was opened up to the general public. “Linux became more user friendly and GIMP became available for Windows and macOS. Today our community is probably less technical, but much, much more artistic”, point out the current managers of the new developments of this software.
Look at the tooth of a gift horse
But not all are advantages: since the last millennium, this free program has been subjected to constant criticism for its stability problems and, above all, for the complexities that its use entails. Both the original developers and their heirs agree that part of the problem may lie with Adobe’s dominance of the market, but there is also an issue of identity. “Photoshop and GIMP are old projects with a lot of baggage that is hard to get rid of. People who complain that GIMP isn’t a Photoshop clone deal with Photoshop’s inconsistencies on a daily basis. And those who have gotten used to the quirks of GIMP do not admit that there are better ways to implement one or another function. It is something human, nothing to be ashamed of”, they explain from the current team.
“I don’t think there’s a single line of code we wrote in GIMP,” says Kimball, who has continued to download new versions of the program. However, he and Mattis admit that some of those problems are surely inherited from the decisions they made when they were two “naive” students. “Never underestimate the persistence of a bad design decision. You create a pattern, and after a bunch of rewrites and evolution, it’s still there. We weren’t the right fit to create an interface for a graphics editing program, and twenty years later, it still shows.”
In the early days of GIMP, no one expected the program to live so long. “I’m still in shock”, assures Mattis. His ambition as students was no higher than that of someone who decides to assemble an Ikea piece of furniture without looking at the instructions. “We ended up spending more time on GIMP than we did going to class,” recalls Kimball. “We had no idea of the work that was going to take us, but learning along the way was an important part of the experience. And I would recommend it to more people: if you’re going to run a marathon, it’s less exciting when you know you can do it,” adds Mattis.
So, a community of volunteer collaborators took over. But survival was still not assured. “We have a habit of trying to make too many changes at once instead of focusing on just a few things,” admit the current GIMP creators. This ambition began to hold back new version releases, to the point that six years passed between 2.8 and 2.6. “To a casual observer, it might seem that the project was dying,” they acknowledge. But the team was still working at full capacity.
So far at least 350 people have contributed to the project, possibly many more. “We don’t just have programmers, there are collaborators who translate the program, write manuals, review reports on bugs, run the social networks, maintain the website, offer support to other users…”, they explain. To avoid giving a feeling of abandonment, they try to keep releasing small updates. “What really matters is that you put new things in the hands of your users.”
Out of that commitment of hundreds has come a tool that still allows anyone with a computer to access a reasonably powerful editing program at no cost. “We can assure you that GIMP continues to grow. Even at 25 years old, his future is exciting. Will it still be with us in another quarter century? Kimball and Mattis don’t rule it out. Those currently responsible for making it happen are satisfied that the world does not go under. “Whatever the challenges of GIMP, they pale in comparison to the global challenges. What we want for people is security and peace of mind: food on their tables, health, access to education, privacy or being able to have the tools they need to work and play. If there’s room for that 25 years from now, it doesn’t much matter whether GIMP is around or not.”