Just to clarify, GIMP definitely has issues, and I'm not trying to convince you otherwise. But they are not issues that can be solved with more UX research or what you would typically call "UX work." That's what I think the misunderstanding here is, please don't misinterpret what I'm saying. The UX issues that are there are already known, what's left is to do the (hard) work of fixing it.
I'd argue that UX requires a lot of engagement and work by software engineers. Sure it isn't work people with the title of "UX designer" or whatever would do, which is why the UX role is usually bullshit, but it is still work needed to fix the UX. And small developer led teams often refuse to bother to even consider that they have to change anything to fix these things.
You are correct that it does, but not every change made by engineers is a UX change. But even if you want to think of it like that, the backend changes still need to happen first in order to get any significant UX change going.
>small developer led teams often refuse to bother to even consider that they have to change anything to fix these things.
