GIMP needs funding for GIMPCon June 2004

Press release

For immediate publication


  GIMP needs funding for GIMPCon June 2004

In June 2004, the developers' conference for the well-known free 
software photo editor GIMP <see: gimp> will be held at the GUADEC 
conference <see: guadec> in Kristiansand, Norway. The GIMP developers 
are looking for sponsors, big and small, to help finance travel 
expenses and accommodation.

Currently, the GIMP community has received several generous donations 
from the Free Software Foundation <see: fsf> and MacGIMP <see: 
macgimp>, and a Merit Award from OSI <see: osi>, but needs about 3000 
US$ more.

Our goal is to have all the active GIMP and GEGL developers present 
at GIMPCon 2004 in order to chart a course for the GIMP for the next 
year and beyond. Having completely revamped its user interface in the 
most recent release, version 2.0.0, the plan is now to set the GIMP 
on track for a new rendering engine (GEGL <http://www.gegl.org>) that 
will allow arbitrary colour depths and spaces.

Recently, the GNOME Foundation have agreed to help the GIMP 
developers by allowing us to use their existing donation structure, 
as outlined at http://www.gimp.org/donating/. There are now several 
ways to donate to the GIMP, via the GNOME Foundation: wire transfer, 
cheque and paypal.

If you wish the GIMP well, if you wish its development to continue 
full steam ahead, or if you enjoy the GIMP now, and wish to express 
that appreciation, donating money to the GIMP would be a good idea in 
our opinion.

The GNOME Foundation is in the USA a tax-exempt, non-profit 501(c)(3) 
organization; all donations are tax-deductible in the USA.


    About

* *GIMP* (<http://www.gimp.org>) is the GNU Image Manipulation 
Program. It is free software for photo retouching, image composition 
and image authoring. It can be used as a simple paint program, an 
expert quality photo retouching program, an online batch processing 
system, a mass production image renderer, an image format converter, 
etc.

GIMP is expandable and extensible. It is designed to be augmented 
with plug-ins and extensions to do just about anything. The advanced 
scripting interface allows everything from the simplest task to the 
most complex image manipulation procedures to be easily scripted.

GIMP is written and developed under X11 on UNIX platforms, but also 
runs on MS Windows and Mac OS X.

* The 5th annual GNOME User and Developer European Conference 
(*GUADEC*, <http://www.guadec.org>), will bring developers, GNOME 
Foundation leaders and individual, business and government GNOME and 
open source software users to Agder University College in 
Kristiansand, Norway.

The conference is a unique forum for highlighting the capabilities 
and direction of GNOME, the user environment for desktops, networked 
servers and portable Internet devices. GUADEC will also feature 
meaningful discussions of the future direction of Open Source 
development.

* The *GNU* Project was launched in 1984 to develop a complete UNIX 
style operating system which is free software: the GNU system. (GNU 
is a recursive acronym for "GNU's Not UNIX"; it is pronounced "guh-
noo.") Variants of the GNU operating system, which use the kernel 
Linux, are now widely used; though these systems are often referred 
to as "Linux," they are more accurately called GNU/Linux systems.

The Free Software Foundation (*FSF*, <http://www.fsf.org>) is the 
principal organizational sponsor of the GNU Project, and supports the 
freedoms of speech, press, and association on the Internet, the right 
to use encryption software for private communication, and the right 
to write software unimpeded by private monopolies.

* The *MacGIMP* project (<http://www.macgimp.org>) is a collaborative 
effort to bring the gimp toolkit (GTK) and the GIMP to Mac OS X. It 
also sells the MacGIMP CD, a build of the GIMP for Mac OS. 

* The Open Source Initiative (*OSI*) can be found at 
<http://www.opensource.org>.

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This press release was written by Branko Collin, a GIMP contributor. 
It can be read at 
http://www.xs4all.nl/~collin/gimp/pr/guadec2004.html. (This is a 
temporary location that may cease to function after GUADEC 2004.)

-- 
branko collin
collin@xs4all.nl