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The one other contender would be Krita, wouldn't it?
http://www.koffice.org/krita/
With KOffice 2.0 (now in beta release) Krita 2.0 will gain significant capability, and also the ability to run on Windows.
It doesn't seem that far off to me, though I'm not really familiar with this application area.
Freeware is proprietary software. GIMP is not proprietary. Therefore, GIMP is not freeware. If you want to say GIMP is available free of charge, just say it is free of charge, "price: $0", costless or even just free (as in price). Or anything with that meaning. The fact that some clueless people do not care about the difference does not justify or excuse lying. Truth is truth, whether some people care about it or not.
This may come as a shock to you but regular users couldn't care less about software freedom especially when the product is not very good.
Most would pay or risk pirating a commercial product rather than using something that kind of meets their needs.
Making this type of observations makes you look like a fanatic.
As for GIMP, I'm really glad that they started to change the UI. Now if they only changed the name, too.
Edited 2008-10-02 07:39 UTC
Freeware is proprietary software. GIMP is not proprietary.
Strange, I thought GIMP was under GPL, meaning that it from legal point of view actually is propriatory. (Sombody owns it, and licenses to us through GPL)
I think, what you meant to say, is that GIMP is free software, where free means free as in free speach. What makes it free is that GPL allows you to:
-use the software for any purpose.
-study and modify the software.
-copy the software
-modify the software, and release the modifications to the public
The nice thing about free software licenses is that they uses copyright law to expand the rights of others rather than limit them.
Your first assumption is incorrect. Freeware merely defines the software as being available at no cost in itself. Free software, OTOH, does not define the price of the software itself, but some freedom-related aspects.
So, "freeware" and "free software" are not opposites, but orthogonal. GIMP happens to be both.
Freeware means exactly that: software that is free of charge.
It does not mean proprietary software, it can be and maybe often is proprietary, but it doesn't have to be.
So I think it's nonsense that you want to make him call it free of charge, "price: $0", costless or free (as in price)?
Depends on your definition on *better*: some tasks which I was never able to find how to do in Gimp, I managed to do them in 5 minutes with Paint.NET.
[I didn't read any doc these two applications and I don't *want* to]
So for the casual user, I consider Paint.NET as clearly better (note that the versions of Gimp I've tried were old), a professional willing to read documentation may have a different view.







Member since:
2008-05-27
The Gimp community seems on a roll. After their new website, which looks great, GEGL started growing, and now it's starting to be integrated into Gimp too.
At the moment, I can't think of a freeware* picture editor, except for Paint.NET maybe, which can rival Gimp (actually, Gimp is better than Paint.NET for most tasks).
* I'm including the Free Software Gimp as freeware because this is Gimp's main attraction to average people, freedom as in "free beer"
Edited 2008-10-01 22:56 UTC