The random utterances of David Arno

In a clear bid to turn Ubuntu into a serious contender for the mainstream market, Gimp is to be removed from future releases. Gimp epitomises everything that is wrong about Linux, with its “feature rich” functionality taking precedence over usability (or “UX” as it’s fashionably called these days). I can honestly say Gimp is the single most difficult-to-use piece of software I’ve used and it was instrumental in driving me toward using Windows many years ago.

For Linux to become mainstream, it needs to ditch the quest for ever more complex features and instead become simple to use. This seems an alien concept to most Linux folk, but it is good to see that Canonical seem to have got it. Now if only they could ditch that shit-brown default theme and get a contemporary look and feel to compete with Windows 7 and OS X, then they just might break into the OS mass-market.

For more details on the reasoning behind ditching Gimp, see this excellent article on Ars Technica.