Hello everyone, my name is Andr. You can call me Andy. I'm a huge fan of the GIMP project. As I understand, this is a volunteered project. No ads, no fees, all free. That is awesome. But I must say I'm not a fan of the slow development (please don't confuse slow with great, I think GIMP is fantastic). I strongly believe the GIMP project deserves more. All these startups around, the apps, the services, the social media bandwagon and so on, they all get a lot of funds, a lot of attention but the great majority of them end up as failures (see: Diaspora, the social network bound to take down Facebook and failed but received massive attention). GIMP is popular, everyone knows about it, at least everyone looking for such a software. But a lot of people consider a better option to pirate Photoshop or any other software rather than try out and learn GIMP. I suppose its because GIMP is not developed by a huge corporation like Adobe. But what about Aviary? Instagram? Those companies started very small (well, more Aviary than Instagram) and now they're up, running and blazing. So to the point, why don't you guys make a move towards acquiring more funds and/or investments? I'm willing to bet there are a few companies out there who would invest in a free software such as GIMP to a level of competition against other softwares. Who wouldn't? They did with Aviary. You get the funds to make this a more progressive project and who knows? Maybe you wouldn't have to volunteer to work on GIMP. Maybe GIMP development could be your actual, paid, work (think of WordPress, the main developers dedicate their lives to the project and the community still does volunteer work on it, and they thank them in the updated version credits, volunteer work doesn't have to disappear). I just want GIMP to be at a whole new level I just know it can achieve. Maybe there is some part I'm missing, maybe you have already received offers and turned down. I'd like to know more about this topic or if you agree with me. Thank you all for reading.