alt Hacker News> And to enforce tolerance, indeed it may be needed to view those who fail at this as childish.
No, it's not necessary to denigrate other people under the belief you can police others by proxy.
"Is this derogatory or offensive?" is a basic localization question that is constantly asked in many languages. Yes, including Arabic.
I generally agree about the evils of linguistic imperialism. But I'm describing the world I live in, not the one I want to create.
But that's beside the point. "Linguistic imperialism" is the wrong lens to use here to defend the name. GIMP is not a sordophone, it's the opposite.
GIMP was named by American-born English speakers with the intent to have an edgy name. GIMP was chosen in reference to the full-body sex garment, because they were college kids and that's funny when you're 23.
The intent was offense. It worked well. It's no surprise that GIMP is only well-adopted where the word doesn't carry its offensive meaning.
>"Is this derogatory or offensive?" is a basic localization question that is constantly asked in many languages. Yes, including Arabic.
While it is pragmatic to chose new names to be appealing to members of dominant societies (I do that too), it is problematic when dominant groups view themselves as entitled to that, which is the case here, and which is why we have this discussion.
>The intent was offense.
First, I am not aware of any evidence that there was an intent to offend. The only source for etymology I know here is an old interview with one of the original developers where he said that he blended the words GNU and Image Manipulation Program, and soon afterwards realized that he heard that word before in a film. There was no suggestion there that he wanted to upset others.
And even if the name was really intended to be edgy, the current developers, who have inherited the codebase from the original authors over two decades ago, view it differently and dissasociate themselves from that etymology in the FAQ. This should be sufficient to close this line of reasoning.
Finally, regarding adoption: I can't tell for sure what it is like for graphics editors, but I haven't ever seen anyone not using SRAM memory and OSRAM lightbulbs in Poland because their names are sordophonic to Polish verbs about defecation (in fact, because of that OSRAM is the only lightbulb brand that I can name from memory). Or even anyone complaining about that, apart from being amused. And I wouldn't dare to demand for these names to change just because they have dirty associations in my language when read a certain way.