THE DEMOTION of the GIMP in Ubuntu GNU/Linux is still being discussed and Mono folks choose to stay out of it, including one of the developers of F-Spot, Stephane Delcroix (see "Mono and GNOME 3.0".
Rumor has it that, during latest UDS, Ubuntu planned to drop Gimp from the default distro and the LiveCD. I won't comment this decision as 1) I have no clue if that's a rumor or more, 2) it was already commented too much, 3) I'm not a whiner, 4) there's a rationale behind that decision and I think I understand it, 5) the full Gimp is only one apt-get away.
This means that a complex program like The GIMP with its large amount of plugins and intimidating interface has been shown the door. A replacement graphics package has not yet been determined.
On wednesday Will and me visited the Usability Symposium 2009 of the Network for User Oriented Software Design, a group which consists mainly of people from the Georg Simon Ohm University of Applied Sciences here in Nuernberg and people from local companies such as Astrum. It was the first symposium of this group and they gave three presentations about software usability.