Interview with Øyvind Kolås, GIMP developer (2017)

How Open-Source Innovation Is Reshaping Creative Tools for Modern Businesses

When Øyvind Kolås sat down in 2017 to discuss his years-long work on GIMP's graphics engine, he wasn't just talking about code — he was articulating a philosophy that has quietly reshaped how businesses approach creative software. As the architect behind GEGL (Generic Graphics Library), Kolås spent over a decade building the foundation for non-destructive image editing in one of the world's most widely used open-source applications. His work represents something larger than a single project: the idea that powerful, professional-grade tools don't need to come with enterprise price tags, and that open collaboration produces better software than closed ecosystems ever could. For businesses navigating tight budgets and growing creative demands, this philosophy has never been more relevant.

The Engineer Behind GIMP's Biggest Transformation

Øyvind Kolås, known in the open-source community by his handle "pippin," is a Norwegian developer whose contributions to GIMP span well over a decade. His primary focus has been GEGL — a graph-based image processing framework that fundamentally changed how GIMP handles pixel data. Before GEGL integration, GIMP was limited to 8-bit color depth and destructive editing workflows. Kolås's work introduced high bit-depth processing, linear light operations, and the architectural groundwork for non-destructive editing.

What made Kolås's approach remarkable was his patience and long-term vision. GEGL development began in the early 2000s, and the full integration into GIMP took more than fifteen years. By 2017, the fruits of this labor were becoming visible in pre-release builds of GIMP 2.10, which would eventually ship with 32-bit floating-point precision, on-canvas preview of GEGL operations, and a dramatically modernized processing pipeline. This wasn't a flashy startup sprint — it was methodical, foundational engineering that prioritized getting the architecture right over shipping features fast.

His story offers a lesson that extends far beyond software development: sustainable innovation requires investing in infrastructure before flashy features. Businesses that build on solid operational foundations — whether in code or in workflow design — consistently outperform those chasing short-term wins.

Why Non-Destructive Workflows Matter Beyond Design

The concept Kolås championed in GIMP — non-destructive editing — is deceptively simple. Instead of permanently altering your source material with each operation, you stack adjustments as reversible layers that can be modified, reordered, or removed at any point. The original data remains intact. In image editing, this means you can apply a color correction, a blur, and a crop, then go back and change the color correction without losing the other adjustments.

This principle has profound implications outside of creative software. Modern businesses increasingly operate in environments where decisions need to be reversible, auditable, and iterative. Consider how a CRM pipeline works: you don't want a single misclick to permanently alter a deal's history. Or think about invoicing — the ability to adjust line items, revert changes, and maintain a clear audit trail is essential for financial compliance. The non-destructive philosophy that Kolås embedded into GIMP's architecture mirrors what well-designed business platforms provide across every operational layer.

Platforms like Mewayz apply this same thinking across their 207 integrated modules. Whether you're adjusting payroll calculations, modifying a client proposal, or restructuring a project timeline, the system maintains change histories and allows you to iterate without fear of losing prior work. It's the business equivalent of non-destructive editing — and it's just as transformative.

The Open-Source Advantage for Growing Businesses

One of the most compelling aspects of Kolås's work on GIMP is what it represents economically. Adobe's Creative Cloud suite costs businesses between $55 and $90 per user per month. For a team of ten designers, that's $6,600 to $10,800 annually — before accounting for stock photography subscriptions, plugin licenses, or training costs. GIMP, powered by Kolås's GEGL engine, offers professional-grade capabilities at zero licensing cost.

The open-source model has matured dramatically since 2017. Businesses today can build entire creative and operational stacks using open-source and affordable SaaS tools without sacrificing quality. The key considerations when evaluating open-source tools for business use include:

• Total cost of ownership — Free licensing doesn't mean free deployment; factor in training, customization, and support
• Community health — Active contributor communities (GIMP has had over 700 contributors) signal long-term viability
• Integration capability — Tools that connect with your existing workflow through APIs and standard file formats reduce friction
• Scalability — Ensure the tool can handle growing workloads without requiring a platform switch
• Security and compliance — Open-source code can be audited, which is increasingly important for businesses handling sensitive data

The smartest businesses don't choose exclusively between open-source and commercial tools. They build hybrid stacks — using GIMP for batch image processing, Mewayz for operational management, and targeted premium tools only where open-source alternatives genuinely fall short. This approach can reduce software spending by 40-60% while maintaining or even improving capability.

Building a Creative-to-Operations Pipeline

Kolås's work highlighted a gap that many businesses still struggle with: the disconnect between creative production and business operations. A designer creates assets in GIMP or Photoshop, exports them, uploads them to a shared drive, notifies the marketing team via Slack, who then manually attaches them to campaigns, social posts, or product listings. Each handoff introduces delay, version confusion, and the risk of using outdated assets.

Forward-thinking companies are eliminating these gaps by connecting their creative workflows directly to their operational platforms. When your design output feeds directly into your CRM, your booking pages, your link-in-bio profiles, and your invoicing templates, you remove an entire category of operational friction. Mewayz users, for example, can update brand assets once and have those changes cascade across client-facing modules — from proposal templates to digital storefronts — without manual re-uploading across disconnected tools.

The most expensive software in any business isn't the one with the highest license fee — it's the one that creates the most manual work between systems. Integration cost, measured in human hours, almost always exceeds subscription cost.

💡 DID YOU KNOW?

Mewayz replaces 8+ business tools in one platform

CRM · Invoicing · HR · Projects · Booking · eCommerce · POS · Analytics. Free forever plan available.

Start Free →

This insight is why the trend toward all-in-one platforms has accelerated. Businesses that previously managed eight to twelve separate tools — each excellent in isolation — are discovering that the coordination overhead between those tools costs more than the tools themselves. A modular platform that handles CRM, invoicing, HR, project management, and creative asset distribution under one roof eliminates hundreds of hours of annual busywork.

Lessons from Fifteen Years of Patient Engineering

Perhaps the most underappreciated aspect of Kolås's story is the timeline. In a tech culture obsessed with rapid iteration and minimum viable products, he spent over fifteen years building GEGL into a production-ready graphics engine. The GIMP team didn't rush GEGL integration to market with half-baked features — they waited until the architecture could support the full vision of high bit-depth, non-destructive, GPU-accelerated image processing.

This patience paid dividends. When GIMP 2.10 finally shipped in April 2018, it wasn't an incremental update — it was a generational leap. The software went from being dismissed as "Photoshop for people who can't afford Photoshop" to being recognized as a genuinely capable alternative with architectural advantages in certain workflows, particularly batch processing and scriptable image manipulation via Script-Fu and Python-Fu.

Businesses can extract a powerful lesson here: foundational investments compound. Spending time setting up proper systems — whether that's configuring a comprehensive business platform, documenting standard operating procedures, or building automated workflows — feels slow initially but creates exponential returns over months and years. Companies that invest a week setting up Mewayz's interconnected modules properly report saving 15-20 hours per week within the first quarter, compared to those who hastily adopt tools without proper configuration.

The Future of Accessible Professional Tools

Since Kolås's 2017 interview, the trajectory he described has only accelerated. GIMP continues evolving toward full non-destructive editing. AI-powered features are being integrated into open-source creative tools. And the broader market has embraced the idea that professional-grade capabilities should be accessible to businesses of every size — not just those with enterprise budgets.

This democratization extends across the entire business software landscape. Where a startup in 2012 might have needed $2,000 per month in software subscriptions to run basic operations, a comparable setup today can cost under $100 using a combination of open-source tools and affordable all-in-one platforms. The 138,000+ businesses already using platforms like Mewayz demonstrate that small and mid-sized companies no longer accept the false choice between capability and affordability.

The convergence of open-source creative tools, AI automation, and modular business platforms is creating an environment where a five-person team can operate with the efficiency and polish of a fifty-person organization. Kolås and developers like him laid the groundwork by proving that world-class software can be built collaboratively, distributed freely, and improved continuously by communities rather than corporations.

Practical Steps to Modernize Your Business Tool Stack

Inspired by the principles behind Kolås's methodical approach to building GEGL, here's a framework for evaluating and modernizing your own business tool stack:

1. Audit your current tools and their true costs. List every software subscription, then add the estimated hours spent on manual data transfer between them. The integration tax is often 2-3x the subscription cost.
2. Identify your core operational spine. Choose one platform to serve as your central hub — ideally one that covers CRM, project management, invoicing, and team coordination natively rather than through integrations.
3. Layer in specialized tools only where necessary. Use GIMP or similar open-source tools for creative work, but ensure they connect to your operational core through shared storage or direct integrations.
4. Invest in setup, not shortcuts. Spend the time to properly configure workflows, automations, and templates upfront. Like Kolås building GEGL's architecture before adding features, your foundational setup determines long-term efficiency.
5. Review and iterate quarterly. Tools evolve, teams grow, and workflows change. Schedule regular reviews to eliminate redundant tools and adopt better alternatives as they emerge.

The era of cobbling together dozens of disconnected tools is ending. Whether you're editing images in GIMP, managing clients in a CRM, or automating your invoicing pipeline, the winning strategy is the same one Øyvind Kolås demonstrated through years of disciplined engineering: build on solid foundations, connect your systems intelligently, and let compounding efficiency do the heavy lifting for your business.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is GEGL and why is it important?

GEGL (Generic Graphics Library) is the graphics processing engine that powers modern GIMP. Developed by Øyvind Kolås, it introduced non-destructive, high-bit-depth image editing. This allows for complex adjustments without permanently altering the original image data, a professional feature once exclusive to expensive software. Modern platforms like Mewayz, which offers 207 modules for $19/mo, also leverage such powerful, non-destructive processing to give businesses professional creative capabilities affordably.

How does open-source software like GIMP benefit businesses?

Open-source software provides a cost-effective, flexible, and transparent alternative to proprietary tools. As highlighted in the interview, the philosophy behind GIMP's development empowers businesses by giving them control over their creative tools. This reduces licensing fees and avoids vendor lock-in. Companies can build upon these stable foundations, similar to how Mewayz provides a suite of 207 integrated modules for a flat $19/mo subscription, making advanced tools accessible.

What is non-destructive editing?

Non-destructive editing is a workflow where adjustments (like filters or color corrections) are applied as layers or instructions rather than directly changing the original pixels. This allows you to re-adjust or remove effects at any time without quality loss. Kolås's work on GEGL brought this professional standard to GIMP. It's a core principle in modern creative suites, including services like Mewayz, which help businesses maintain flexible, high-quality asset production.

Can open-source tools truly compete with commercial software?

Yes, as evidenced by GIMP's sustained use and development. The interview shows that open-source projects can achieve professional-grade results through dedicated community effort. They often drive innovation that is later adopted by commercial products. For businesses seeking a balanced approach, subscription-based services like Mewayz (207 modules for $19/mo) demonstrate how professional tools can be made both powerful and accessible, blending open-source principles with sustainable development.