The Gimp logo

When I first posted about the matter, most people’s reaction was LOL.

The we thought it was just a random proposal, never going to be approved. Well, according to OMGUbuntu’s do0d, the GIMP has just have been said bye bye in favor of having just F-Spot to edit photos.

The rationale is pretty much the same of what we seen in my the proposal:

  • the general user doesn’t use it
  • its user-interface is too complex
  • it’s an application for professionals
  • desktop users just want to edit photos and they can do that in F-Spot
  • it’s a photoshop replacement and photoshop isn’t included by default in Windows…
  • it takes up room on the disc

Even if I can agree about Gimp being complex and targeted to professionals, I can’t see f-spot as a good enough replacement.

Couldn’t we just port Paint.NET to Mono and use that instead? Ops.. :)

I’ll repost the integral, temporary, non-definitive, not-to-be-taken-seriously gobby notes of the meeting:

Not as simple as:

http://www.piware.de/2009/11/you-know-that-you-are-in-the-u-s/

* Step 1: Ditch the GIMP
* Step 2: ???
* Step 3: PROFIT!

so:

1. Game selection. Can we choose fewer, better games by default, especially ones that include a social component?

- robert_ancell’s guess at the best group to pick from are:
- (./) Aisleriot – though I worry it has too many variants for users to know what to play
- ACTION: djsiegel to do a UI review
- Chess* – Old fashioned and well known. Too complex, i.e. will the average user know the rules or would an experienced player be happy to seek it out through the software store? – http://www.airbagindustries.com/archives/airbag/spaceman.php
- Needs telepathy network support.
- Pick a dumber AI for default
- GBrainy – “Brain” games are very popular at the moment. Interface and puzzles seem a little complicated when I tried it. Needs improved name in menu e.g. “Brain Exercise”.
- (./) Mahjongg – Simple visual matching solitaire. Most highly rated in GNOME Games survey. Good game for children?
- Mines – Simple rules and highly addictive. Been a popular game on Windows for years.
- (./) Sudoku – Does Sudoku have lasting popularity now it has been around for a number of years? – popular, but hard to maintain and buggy (timing)
- (./) Tetris – Highly rated in survey. The GNOME Games version is now in clutter and may cause performance problems on various systems. – buggy(??)
- Tetrinet as an alternate?
- Maybe community contests, a la the wallpaper project, to get contributers to make games for future inclusion
- Perhaps coordinate with existing compos like PyWeek / TIGSource which regularly churn out quality games (mrooney is happy to help here)
- we can count on clutter for games
- Look into providing access to online games, like Facebook (Farmville)
- ACTION: fagan to investigate soduko telepathy integration
- ACTION: robert to own the selection for lucid+1
- Look better
- Integrate with telepathy
- Work with upstreams
- A domino game. Never implemented.
- Some educational (but funny) physics games? Test Numpty Physics. <- That rules! It to easy to learn.

2. Can we include a video editor by default?
- (Collabora is supportive of Ubuntu using pitivi, and this seems a good and usable choice to me.)
- Approach Collabora about rename and whether we can count on them for support.
- simple use case of opening a video and using the timeline is hard to achieve (usability needs to be improved)
* would be cool if cheese had video
- Openshot
- Design team to look at the UI of pitivi and/or Openshot

3. Is it time to move off the Gimp to make room for other apps? The Gimp is a showcase for the power of FOSS, but also is complex, takes up a lot of room, and basic photo editing tasks are taken up by F-Spot.
- Gimp isn’t a good first experience for new users, really for hardcore editors
- mt points out that leaving it on the CD isn’t actually that conducive towards its goals, we need better marketing of the Gimp towards non-Ubuntu users
- This could be accomplished with a “staff picks” section in Software Center, to present awesome applications to end users when they are not installed by default. (Since installing an app by default should not be the only way to give it attention).
- Make mixes on the Software Center (“Gimme the graphic designer package”) The SWEET Suite
- Most people get by with F-Spot and even eog for rotating images
- switch on F-spot as default viewer -> currently sloooow to open and does not do nice folder browsing – some editing tools are fiddly (eg: soft focus and red eye reduction. Flip does not provide any controls to the user; arbitrarily flips vertically. No obvious Undo).
- We have read many complaints about a lack of simple crop app (or nautilus-action).
- ACTION: Remove the Gimp from default install (djsiegel is concerned about removing an exemplar app from the default install), use eog for default viewing with “Open in F-Spot” prominently for editing (dbl is going to drive the photo experience)
- ACTION: design team to look at the f-spot interface, looking for inconsistencies with other apps (e.g. editing functions)

4. Overall application selection. Can we look through each category and discuss if we have the right apps in place by default.
* remove synaptic by default?
* Add a simple backup app like BackInTime
* (I missed this session, but I’m the maintainer of a simple end-user-focused backup program called Deja Dup: https://launchpad.net/deja-dup)

5. run through seeds

6. All Mono, All the time <- irony

alacarte?
tsclient/vinagre: one is being merged into the other (confusing in menu to have two in the menu for essentially the same purpose)
- ACTION: robert_ancell to investigate when/if vinagre replaces tsclient
What about a selection of nautilus plugins for simple+common actions?
An util add for nautilus is the plugin nautilus-md5sum to check the integrity of ISOs. <- not a good idea, would take startup time for all users and slow nautilus for no stong win. Not at all, is light and very useful. In fact we want users to check iso images MD5sum, but there is no simple way to do it without a terminal.Usually an standar user doesn’t want to use a terminal.

keep rhythmbox for lucid

Using Empathy, have a new systray icon when a message has came, is possible? Like pidgin.

Oh, they’ll keep Rhytmbox.