I was only recently made aware that GIMP 2.8, a.k.a. ‘the one with single window mode’, had strayed off course from its intended release date of December 26th this year.

Perhaps I’ve been too busy with my cajoling of Adobe to bring Photoshop to Linux to notice that one of Linux’s most powerful applications is in a little bit of a mire.

LibreGraphicsWorld offers up some background on the delay: –

“Unfortunately the GIMP team that has always been short-handed became even more shorthanded during spring 2010, when Martin [Northolts] became too busy to contribute to the project on daily basis the way he used to, thus leaving the team with just 2.5 dedicated developers. This is quite unfortunate, since the only big chunk of work left to do for 2.8 is the optional single-window mode, for which the final design spec is also missing at the time.”

Sucks, right? It’s often easy to forget that some of these ‘big name’ applications don’t have ‘big name’ grunt behind them.

So, if you’re feeling in charitable, helpful or otherwise altruistic mood thanks to excessive amounts of mince pies then send the GIMP team some love with a donation or – perhaps more vitality – a helping hand.

Thanks to Antonio