NewsForge: Documenting the GIMP’s File Format Resolves Technical and Political Issues

“The GIMP finally has a documented file specification. The free
image editor has long been criticized over the fact that its native
image format XCF was not publicly documented. Recently the issue
came to a head, sparked unintentionally by discussions over the
proposed OpenRaster graphics interchange format. Once the argument
cooled off, however, an independent developer decided to tackle the
problem head on–to the benefit of all.

“The gist of the debate was this: some outside of the GIMP
project felt that XCF was being intentionally kept closed, and that
perhaps the project’s members were attempting to lock out outside
developers. GIMP project developers insisted that this was not
true; XCF was documented in the source code, and there were several
other projects that supported it…”

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