Hello. TLDR: Alexandre attacks GIMP critics around the internet implying that he's a developer of GIMP and represents GIMP, using language and doing things that are completely inappropriate for his (self-proclaimed?) role, which makes the whole GIMP team look like crap for no reason. FULL: A little bit of a backstory (which you can skip if in a hurry): I've had a couple of unpleasant exchanges with Alexandre. Our latest exchange is https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/9vneh8/gimp_2108_released/e9doqjq from the Reddit thread at https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/9vneh8/gimp_2108_released/. While it started innocently enough, it quickly turned nasty. What triggered Alexandre was my opinion that scheduled releases are better than random ones, because people like IT administrators might have to upgrade hundreds of computers, and being able to plan for that is nice. I think he understood I claimed the GIMP development team could and should refactor GIMP to GTK3 and release in 6 months (which I never said). Regardless, instead of saying "ah, no GIMP is better with rolling release because, bla bla bla..." he started attacking me personally--basically saying that I had no right to say that because I'm not a GIMP developer (but neither is he more on that later). A missed opportunity to learn something: just because of his tone, the discussion deviated from that and got uncivil, which is what I observed always happens with him when he exchanges ideas with people that have unapproved opinions. I tend to be blunt and ignore political correctness. Add that to perhaps getting passionate or even emotional about stuff, and to be honest sometimes I do get harsh replies and have to rephrase things I didn't say nicely enough. However, exchanges with Alexandre are a totally different beast. Why? A while after posting the comments I talked about above I started getting PMs of "solidarity" from other users that Alexandre attacked around Reddit. For instance, I was given permission to include: >>> A day or two ago I dared criticize GIMP [...] and that alexlg guy came off the ropes so hard I was literally in tears over it. Just wanted to tell you how validating it was to see you jousting over the exact same ground with him just a few days earlier. Another message: >>> [...] He even went so far as to mention me by name in another thread entirely, basically calling me a whiny baby, once enough people had dogpiled that he was forced to slightly change his stance on something. Even if you win, you lose... Because he implies that he's a GIMP developer--by saying stuff like "oh, you don't develop GIMP, you can't say anything bad about it", or using "we" in connection with the GIMP dev team (with the word "dev" being important here)--he seems to get some sympathy from fellow users, because what kind of piece of shit attacks volunteers that create awesome free stuff for people (which I agree with). It really upset me when I found out that he's not at developer at all, but contributes in non-technical ways. This is bad not only because I can excuse his attitude from a developer but not from someone that writes articles on Facebook while pretending to be a developer to please his ego, but because he doesn't get banned from communities just because he implies that he's in the dev team. I think that if Alexandre's job is to "market" GIMP, not only he's doing a horrible job, but he's being detrimental to the project. It's easy to relate to people that agree with you, they're already passionate GIMP users! Those that have some kind of issues are the ones to really talk to, because you can explain things to them and since GIMP is an awesome project you can change their mind or make them more informed, and turn a critic into a passionate GIMP user (or even evangelist). In addition, pretending to be in the dev team is good for his ego, but really bad for the dev team, since it just gives the impression that GIMP devs are entitiled assholes. I'm aware that this email might not only fail to help stop Alexandre from attacking people, but also cause more attacks towards me since I would assume you sympathize with him, but so be it. Maybe (just maybe) you guys are not aware of what's going on and don't actually agree with this behavior, and (just maybe) you can get Alexandre to change his attitude into one that is more productive and appropriate for someone who either does or claims to represent the GIMP team. Niccolo. -- Niccolo. _______________________________________________ gimp-developer-list mailing list List address: gimp-developer-list@xxxxxxxxx List membership: https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gimp-developer-list List archives: https://mail.gnome.org/archives/gimp-developer-list
