Xara Xtreme GPL'ed

[Øivind Hoel]

On 3/20/06, Sean Hammond <sean.hammond at gmail.com> wrote:
> No wait, it looks like you're right. The Linux version so far handles
> most rendering and a few basic editing functions, and the rest is
> being worked on.
>
> On 3/20/06, Sean Hammond <sean.hammond at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 3/20/06, Jan Claeys <lists at janc.be> wrote:
> > > It was released under GPL some time ago.  There is a preview that can be
> > > used to view many (but not all) Xara-created illustrations under Linux,
> > > but currently there is no working Linux version of the editor yet.  It
> > > will take them some time to finish this (and they can use some helping
> > > hands...).
> >
> > Are you sure? The press-release on the xara.org front-page just seems
> > to suggest that the source code available for download is xara xtreme
> > for Linux, and doesn't make any caveats about viewer-only. The
> > download page has been updated very recently too, though that doesn't
> > necessarily mean anything.

The one I just downloaded seems to be editor-capable, although nowhere
near as complete as gimp/inkscape, and I lost work when I accidentally
deleted parts of the image I was working on (this is the unstable,
non-reccommended version btw) - undo didn't work :-)

The gimp isn't really inferior to photoshop - what puts most people
off (including me) is probably it's quirky interface. I really get
distracted by having the desktop show through instead of the MDI
interface of photoshop where I feel like I'm actually "inside" the
program. Also, an artist with a long experience with photoshop will
have big issues adapting to the different naming conventions and
generally the different ways of doing things. Some aspects of life are
easier with the gimp, some are not.

Gimp and text is a big annoyance to most people I've seen try to switch.