Editing GIMP (section)

== History ==
In 1995, [[Spencer Kimball (computer programmer)|Spencer Kimball]] and [[Peter Mattis]] began developing GIMP as a semester project at  [[University of California, Berkeley]] for the [[eXperimental Computing Facility]]''.''<ref name="GIMPHISTORY">{{cite web |title=How It All Started |url=https://www.gimp.org/about/prehistory.html |last1=Kimball |first1=Spencer |last2=Mattis |first2=Peter |access-date=18 June 2020 |archive-date=25 June 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200625185922/https://www.gimp.org/about/prehistory.html |url-status=live }}</ref>  The software was originally named the General Image Manipulation Program. Kimball and Mattis formed the acronym GIMP by adding the letter G to "-IMP," inspired by a reference to "the gimp" in the 1994 film ''[[Pulp Fiction]]''.<ref>{{cite web |last=Beane |first=Zachary |date=1 January 1997 |title=Spencer Kimball & Peter Mattis |url=https://www.xach.com/gg/1997/1/profile/1/ |website=Gimp Gazette |access-date=29 March 2020 |quote=It took us a little while to come up with the name. We knew we wanted an image manipulation program like Photoshop, but the name IMP sounded wrong. We also tossed around XIMP (X Image Manipulation Program) following the rule of when in doubt prefix an X for X11 based programs. At the time, ''Pulp Fiction'' was the hot movie and a single word popped into my mind while we were tossing out name ideas. It only took a few more minutes to determine what the 'G' stood for. |archive-date=11 November 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201111191926/https://www.xach.com/gg/1997/1/profile/1/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

GIMP's first public release, version 0.54, came out in 1996.<ref name="gimp-prehistory">{{cite web |title=Prehistory – before GIMP 0.54 |url=http://gimp.org/about/prehistory.html |date=29 July 1995 |website=Gimp.org |publisher=Peter Mattis |access-date=2 July 2009 |archive-date=5 September 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150905165132/http://www.gimp.org/about/prehistory.html |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="ancient-history">{{cite web |title=ancient history |url=http://gimp.org/about/ancient_history.html |website=Gimp.org |access-date=18 June 2012 |archive-date=5 September 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150905160149/http://www.gimp.org/about/ancient_history.html |url-status=live }}</ref>  It attracted many users, and a community of contributors grew around it.  These contributors produced tutorials, shared artwork, and introduced improved workflows and techniques.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Bunks |first=Carey |url=https://archive.org/details/grokkinggimp00care/page/14 |title=Grokking the GIMP |publisher=New Riders |date=2000 |isbn=978-0-7357-0924-9 |page=14 |access-date=8 July 2009 |url-access=registration }}</ref>

During a visit to UC Berkeley in 1997, [[Richard Stallman]] of the [[GNU Project]] spoke with Kimball and Mattis about changing "General" in the program's name to "GNU".<ref>{{cite web |title=Documentation |url=http://gimp.org/docs/userfaq.html#Gimp |website=Gimp.org |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120628231352/http://gimp.org/docs/userfaq.html#Gimp |archive-date=28 June 2012 |access-date=18 June 2012}}</ref> Stallman approved, and GIMP became part of the GNU software collection.<ref>{{cite web |title=GNU Software |url=https://www.gnu.org/software/software.html |website=Gnu.org |publisher=GNU |access-date=28 March 2015 |archive-date=25 December 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151225191933/http://www.gnu.org/software/software.html |url-status=live }}</ref>

The initial release worked only on [[Unix]]-based systems such as [[Linux]], [[Silicon Graphics|SGI]] [[IRIX]] and [[HP-UX]].{{r|GIMPHISTORY}}<ref name="Why Windows">{{cite web |title=Why Port to Windows |url=http://www.gimp.org/~tml/gimp/win32/why.html |website=Gimp.org |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090627105722/http://www.gimp.org/~tml/gimp/win32/why.html |archive-date=27 June 2009 }}</ref> Since then, GIMP has been ported to other operating systems, including [[Microsoft Windows]] (1997, GIMP 1.1)<ref name="Why Windows" /> and [[macOS]].

A [[widget toolkit|GUI toolkit]] called [[GTK]] (at the time known as the GIMP ToolKit) was developed to facilitate the development of GIMP. The development of the GIMP ToolKit has been attributed to Peter Mattis becoming disenchanted with the [[Motif (software)|Motif]] toolkit GIMP originally used. Motif was used up to GIMP 0.60.<ref name="ancient-history" /><ref>{{cite web |last=Hackvän |first=Stig |date=1 January 1999 |title=Where Did Spencer Kimball and Peter Mattis go? |url=http://www.linuxworld.com/linuxworld/lw-1999-01/lw-01-gimp.html |website=[[LinuxWorld.com]] |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/19990417052141/http://www.linuxworld.com/linuxworld/lw-1999-01/lw-01-gimp.html |archive-date=17 April 1999 |access-date=19 August 2013 |quote=''LinuxWorld: Why did you write GTk as part of GIMP? Mattis: The original version of the GIMP (0.5) used Motif.''}}</ref>{{Clear}}

=== Mascot ===
[[File:Wilber (Gimp mascot) horizontal.png|right|300x300px]]

Wilber, the official mascot of GIMP, was created using GIMP by Tuomas Kuosmanen, known as ''tigert'', on September 25 1997.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.gimp.org/about/ancient_history.html |title=A Brief (and Ancient) History of GIMP |website=Gimp.org |access-date=10 September 2022 |archive-date=23 October 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221023130629/https://www.gimp.org/about/ancient_history.html |url-status=live }}</ref>

Over time, other GIMP developers contributed additional accessories for Wilber, which are included in the ''Wilber Construction Kit''.  The kit is available in GIMP's [[source code]] at <code>/docs/Wilber_Construction_Kit.xcf.gz</code>.