It should be fairly obvious by now that every project which has been forked over some perceived social injustice has quickly failed, being born and dying in irrelevance. Maybe if the spent some of the energy they spend harassing free software maintainers on perfecting the craft themselves, their forks would go somewhere

@sir I think that this conflates the success of a fork to the technical skill of the people forking it which isn't usually true. Half the reason why forks die is because other people don't contribute, partially because FLOSS has a tendency to be hostile towards minorities, (which is usually the reason the fork exists to begin with lol)

If we can raise awareness and empathy for marginalized groups within FLOSS, forks will be made less often, and be more successful when they do pop up.

@wgahnagl @sir The FLOSS community isn't hostile towards minorities, but it's very much focused on merit. If you yell loudly and often, but don't really bring any code to the table, people are more dismissive of your calls for action. Don't forget that most FLOSS software is also made for gratis by other people. Demanding they change the things they worked for in their spare time because you feel like it's something you deserve isn't "empathy for marginalized groups". That's just harassment.

As for the Glimpse fork of GIMP it's important to note that, in reality, the word "gimp" isn't offensive to the vast majority of the world. To demand a change that's relatively costly to most users, and to do so using harassment tactics[1], seems like a very strange thing to me if you're arguing for compassion and empathy.

[1]: I'm not saying you use harassment tactics, but the group demanding the rename on GitLab was.
@tyil but right, look at the first part of your argument. You mention minorities, and bring merit as almost an argument against them, by putting them at odds with each other. I know you didn't mean anything by it, but it's these very very small actions that build up to contribute to a hostile environment.
When you hear arguments about minorities in FLOSS constantly at odds with "merit", eventually you believe that the community doesn't aknowledge your skill, which is hostile. +
@tyil and specifically in the case of "gimp" being nonoffensive to most of the world, why do you value "most of the world" more than you value the few? Does it make a difference how many people are hurt when you know that people are hurting?
I think it really is an issue of empathy, and seeing the people on the other side of the argument as nothing more than people the other side of the argument. +
@wgahnagl @tyil
It's very hard to find a name for a project that wouldn't be offensive at least somewhere in the world.
@balsoft @tyil I think you're seeing these projects as 100% eternal but names can and do change pretty frequently lmao
Even in a post apocalyptic world where every word has become offensive, people can still make up words and rename projects.
I think your argument stems from a fear of being inclusive to everyone all the time which is frustrating when you don't understand the perspective of people who work towards inclusiveness.
@wgahnagl @balsoft I never said names don't change. Again, you're putting words in my mouth for the sake of pretending to have an argument.