Big picture goals:
* To create a new cross-platform industry standard
* To change the graphics landscape forever
* To create the best drawing / vector graphics software that has ever existed.
* At the same time create a genuinely useful, general-purpose graphics tool for everyone

Specifically to create a new cross-platform product that is better, in every respect possible, than the market leading vector graphics program and the forthcoming Microsoft product. These companies have near infinite financial resources, but on the current evidence (i.e. from their products, in our humble opinion) are falling way short of what's possible, are poorly designed, not very usable and hugely over-priced.

But we never underestimate the distortion of the normal market forces that money brings. If everything else was equal the best product would win, but with huge marketing and advertising budgets it's often the product with the most money behind it, not the best.

In our opinion there is no justification for charging $300, $500 or a lot more (Adobe Illustrator costs over $900 in the UK) for software with a potential market of millions.

Xara does not have the financial resources to compete effectively with the likes of Adobe or Microsoft using a traditional closed-source business model. We DO have the technical skills, experience and ability to create world-class products that more than compete. Xara Xtreme demonstrates this.

The Open Source approach, when successful, can leverage the skills of a large number of developers who have a common goal to create products that are as good as or better than the best commercial equivalents.

We believe that having a really top-drawer, commercial-standard graphics tool on the Linux platform (that is truly Open Source) is something that would help the entire community and progress Linux and other Open Source platforms. This is borne out from our conversations with many Linux users, as well as from having had a constant stream of customer requests for a Linux (and Mac) Xara X.

We want to create the best possible, cross-platform graphics product we can. We know a great many Linux users who'd like the same thing - a product, as good as, if not better than anything else available. And on Linux that means it has to be Open Source in order to stand any chance of success. Xara X is the product base that can turn that from a dream in to reality. Once we have a fully working port, we hope that continued development by Xara engineers, in combination with the Open Source developer community, will create a product that goes beyond anything currently available on any platform.

Partly, yes..

Any company has to be worried when a giant like Microsoft decides to get into their market. Time and again Microsoft have demonstrated that money overcomes innovation and technical merit. In our opinion the first versions of Microsoft Expression will not be a threat to us, any more than to Adobe. But throw millions of dollars at it, and by the time they've got to version 3, a few years down the road, it might be competitive. Even without this, you can be sure that just through their sheer sales and marketing clout, and dollars, they will sell more copies of Expression in a week than we'd normally sell in a year.

So we decided to do something dramatic. Many have suggested what we're doing is extreme. We believe this is the only thing that will make a difference.
* We've launched a brand new version of Xara X (called Xara Xtreme). It's faster, easier to use and has new Photo tools - now a much more general purpose product
* We've made huge price cuts to the Windows product, to just $79
* We will be making the product Open Source (under the GPL)
* And will be porting it to Linux and Mac.

In other words we've moved into territory that Microsoft and Adobe cannot follow. They cannot and will not make their products free and Open Source (they can't afford to). They (almost certainly) won't even make them cross-platform (Adobe shows signs of not even fully supporting the Mac platform.)

We like the idea of upsetting the apple cart. We like the idea of doing something that disrupts the (un) natural order of things.

Xara could not afford to port the product to Linux and Mac by itself in a short timescale. But we hope that by making it Open Source, by sharing the technology this way, that in combination with the community of Linux and Mac users and developers, we certainly can afford this and make this happen in a shorter timescale than could ever be possible on our own.

We believe that we can make enough money from a variety of activities to enable us to continue with this project and indeed thrive. We're not a large company and do not need or expect to make hundreds of millions of dollars (and that alone separates us from Adobe or Microsoft). But we will continue to sell versions of Xara X into the Windows market. We'll also sell commercial version into the Linux and Mac market if there is demand. The commercial versions can include premium elements such as third party licensed components that we can't make available under Open Source, for example fonts, plug-ins, Pantone colors. All the bundled Live Effects plug-ins are examples. And of course things like CDs, boxed versions, manuals, and last but not least customer support - these will always cost money and can't be part of an entirely free product. These things only enhance the acceptance and respect the product has by commercial or professional users but takes nothing away from the Open Source version. We will also continue to sell other Windows software. There are numerous ways in which we can make money to continue to prosper as a company.

And further, users will have the security of knowing their product will ALWAYS be supported by a dedicated community of Open Source developers, unlike those poor customers of Macromedia Freehand or Mac versions of Expression.

So Xara X has a future, no matter what.

It's possible. By making the product Open Source, we are letting the cat out of the bag, so to speak, and cannot control or dictate what happens to the product from this point on. This is not necessarily a bad thing for the product. It means, assuming it remains popular, that the product will have a future even if Xara, the company, were to cease, be sold or change direction.

On the other hand we are going to manage the official version. Anything branded Xara will be the official version that has our direct backing, undergone our fanatical quality control to ensure not just they are as reliable and as fast, but that they continue to provide the slick ease of use that Xara are renowned for.

No. Because the key part of the GPL Open Source license requires that anyone using GPL licensed code also make their product available under the same license. i.e. that they Open Source their product. So no developer or competitor can incorporate any of our code into their product without purchasing a commercial license from us, or making their product Open Source as well.

We're not giving them away - we are sharing with like-minded people, who can help us (to develop the product more rapidly) and whom we can help (by bringing a top-notch product to their platform and by sharing our technology). In the end we hope that the increased user-base that should result will help our business.

Yes. Both on an OEM basis (anyone wanting to incorporate the product or any of our technology in closed source applications) and to end-users, individuals or corporate users who want Xara supported versions or versions that include licensed plug-ins or components (such as Pantone colour support - this is a third party licensed product that we can't Open Source). See the section on Licenses if you have a question related to that aspect.

Xara X was designed from day one to be platform portable. Indeed the original version was created for the Acorn RISC computer in the early 1990s (it was called ArtWorks back then). Although we have never before created a complete Linux or Mac version, the job is nowhere near as bad as if we'd written a Windows specific application. Still this is not an insubstantial job and will likely take months. It depends on the amount of community developer support we get. See How can I help.

There have been some attempts at creating Open Source vector programs before now. One project, Inkscape, remains the most actively developed product and it shows great promise. In some areas it provides features that Xara does not. Inkscape is the results of a purely volunteer, part time, development effort (and is even more remarkable for that), but it is not yet a finished product or of a standard that would be acceptable as a commercial product.

But we realise that Inkscape has significant momentum in the Open Source community and is one of the most active, and best managed projects around. We have been in discussion with Inkscape developers to see how we could cooperate to the benefit of all. And so we have agreed to consider how we could create a future product that combines the best of both Inkscape and Xara Xtreme. This makes a lot of sense, but is not easy, and it might take years. It certainly would if we created a new product from scratch.

So before we start work it makes sense to first port exactly what we've got now. Once the port is completed THEN we can start to move forward and work out how to combine the best of both worlds.

Support whichever you want. Inkscape is more mature on Linux right now. But if you want to see a Xara Xtreme equivalent on Linux as soon as possible then we could certainly use the help. You could support both by getting involved in components that will be shared between both projects, such as Eric Wilhelm's universal graphics translator. See http://scratchcomputing.com/projects/uber-converter/

As we move forward we hope to see additional libraries and modules shared commonly between the two.

Yes, and we've discussed this with key Inkscape developers and have agreed to cooperate to see how we can make this happen. The first step on this path is for us to get Xara Xtreme completely working on Linux (and Mac ideally). This enables Inkscape developers and everyone to best understand how our product works, and to move forward from that point.

Yes, and that's one of the benefits of open Source Development, sharing, not re-inventing. However it's probably not that straightforward. The architecture of both products will be very different meaning it's unlikely to be a straightforward process. Our immediate goal is to get a working, complete, stable Xara Xtreme on Linux and then to work with Inkscape on future versions.

So we're encouraging developers not to try incorporating Inkscape features ad-hoc into Xara (or vice versa) in the short term. Let's get a working Xara X on Linux first and then we can see what's good, what's not and how best to move forward.

Answer: Possibly. Choice is a good thing. But with limited developers we believe it makes sense to combine forces. Our goal is simple - to create the single best graphics product we can - better than anything else available on any platform.

It doesn't make sense wasting time competing with each other when the big picture is that we have to compete with Microsoft and Adobe for the mindshare of mass-market.

You want Linux to be taken seriously in the graphics market? Then let's create one truly great graphics product and not many, 'quite nice' but unfinished products.

The initial goal is to create a Open Source version of Xara Xtreme that is as good, as slick, as the Windows desktop version. How long this take depends on the number of developers in the Open Source community who are willing to help us achieve that. This is not likely to be less than many months.

Everything has to be done a step at a time.

The short term project milestones:
* Create basic WXWidgets framework that will form the new framework for the application. (DONE)
* Create Linux port using GCC that can open and create the Xara document tree. (DONE)
* The ability to display Xara X documents using the Xara rendering engine, zoom and scroll (no operational tools) (DONE)
* Allow access by selected third parties to this source base and to begin to Open Source this to contributors who want to help us port the product to their platform
* Continue to port the remainder of the code to achieve a product as complete and slick as the commercial shipping Xara Xtreme

The very latest Xara Xtreme is the code-base for the new Open Source cross platform build. Bug fixes and improvements made to the latest shipping Windows version are immediately mirrored in the Open Source codebase.

Once a product is made Open Source anyone can create their own version (they also have to make it Open Source as well). They cannot use the Xara name as that remains our proprietary trademark. But, for example, were some developers interested in creating a version that was more orientated towards CAD work, they are free to do that, and we may even encourage them to do so. Were they to create good, popular, enhancements, we could then re-incorporate them back into the main Xara X version. That's one of the benefits of the Open Source model.

We are releasing Xara Xtreme under the GPL (GNU Public License) version 2. This is the most well known open-source license, allowing it to be combined with the maximum amount of open-source code. In short, the license means you can modify and distribute the source code as you wish, but if you provide a compiled version, you have to make the source code available for free.

Well, you can distribute any changes you've made as you see fit. Xara intends to maintain one or more "official" trees, which we hope people will find useful. We will be carefully auditing what goes into that, to make sure the architecture of the product remains consistent, that files remain compatible, and to maintain Xara's unrivalled reputation for speed, and lack of bugs.

The answer to that is two fold. The code we are initial releasing is our own - whilst we are licensing it under GPL, we can also use continue to license it commercially (as it's ours), which we will do. However, we hope contributions from the community can (in general) be used in both versions. To achieve this, we'll need some sort of agreement from those who contribute code to our tree that we can do this. See below. Note that this isn't compulsory - under there GPL you can modify the code as you wish (provided you supply the source code when you distribute the binary).

We will not be requiring you to assign away your copyright. There are several reasons for this:

1. The code will be released GPL. Not a GPL variant, but GPL. This means you can do *WHAT YOU LIKE WITH IT* subject to the normal GPL license conditions.
   
   
   
   
   
2. We will be maintaining the "official" Xara tree (i.e. the one with the Xara name on it) - anyone else is free to maintain their own tree. That's the beauty of open source. The only sense in which we are planning to "require" anything is that if you want your modification to get into our tree, it has to jump certain quality hurdles. Some of those are to do with making sure at least one of our trees stays relatively bug-free, the architecture is consistent, and file compatibility is not broken. Another will be to do with licensing. This is because we want to be able to issue a proprietary version as well. There are two reasons for this: firstly, we need to continue to survive as a company. Secondly, there is stuff we simply can't open source - for instance commercially licensed third party components such as the Pantone library and Live Effects plug-ins. Both of these things, we think, are good for the Open Source program. Having an open-source program that is also available as a commercially supported product, that contains features (for instance) such as Pantone, for those willing to pay and who require these features (the professional market) is clearly better than being unable to provide these things. A commercially supported version is probably even necessary to gain the trust and respect of a certain sector of the market. If professionals user are unable to use the product, they will go elsewhere and we all lose. Equally, having us able to fund full-time developers means both versions benefit.
   
   
   
   
   
3. Assignment usually means you (the assignor) would lose your rights to us (the assignee). We do not intend to ask for that, and to do so would be totally unfair. What we will be asking for is for some sort of license that will allow us to use your code in our commercial version as well, but will allow the original author to retain all their copyright rights. We know the question here is "well why should you guys get any special benefit?". The answer to that is that we're putting a lot of code into the open-source domain, and we need to continue to sell commercial versions of the official Xara build.
   
   
   
   

It helps in three significant ways:

1. It guarantees Xara X has a future.
   Once the code is Open Source it's set free so that no commercial company can control or own it. We will still control and maintain an official Xara version that undergoes our strict quality control. But it means you as customers are no longer dependent solely on us developing it. It means that what has happened to Expression on the Mac and looks increasingly likely to happen to Macromedia Freehand (purchased by competitors and development stopped) can never happen to Xara X. It provides a degree of security for the product that you will not get from a pure commercial product, be it a small company or large (e.g. Macromedia).
   
   
   
   
   
2. It should accelerate development of the Windows, Linux and Mac versions
   By far the most common request on the Xara X forums is for new or improved features. We maintain a 'wish list' that contains hundreds of great ideas, of ways to improve the product, from users and from our own developers. If we could implement only a fraction of these we'd have unequivocally the best all-round graphics product, period. But we don't have the resources to do this because we're a relatively small company, compared to say Adobe and Microsoft. This is incredibly frustrating for our users, and even more for us.
   
   But the real eye-opener is to consider Open Source products such as Inkscape. This is far from complete, but this advances at a considerably greater rate than Xara X does, indeed probably faster than Adobe Illustrator does. It's evolved and developed by a community of like-minded developers, because they want a good drawing program for their platform and are prepared to donate their time to make that come about.
   
   So imagine what could be done by combining that type of community development resource along with the commercial backing and investment of Xara into the project. We hope to massively leverage what we're doing already, and that helps the Linux community get what they want (a really slick, rapidly evolving, competitive, commercial standard product) and should help the product evolve much more rapidly. We believe that by combining both approaches this can be a very credible threat to the two giants that dominate this industry - Adobe and Microsoft.
   
   
   
   
   
3. It gives users choice
   Not just a choice of platform. The goal is to have near identical versions running on Windows, Mac and Linux. We know many users of Xara Xtreme are reluctant Windows users because we gave them no choice. Well hopefully now we can give them that additional choice to work on their preferred platform, Linux or Mac.
   
   It might also provide choice as to variants of Xara Xtreme. If there is appropriate demand from a section of the user community for, say, a CAD orientated version, or a DTP orientated version, then users and developers have the freedom and choice to create such things themselves. And this happens regularly in the Open Source world.
   
   
   
   

We have made dramatic price cuts to the latest Windows versions of the software to bring it closer to the free price that Linux users expect. The Windows version continues to include a shipping CD, they can buy a printed manual, and we provide direct customer support to paying customers. In addition the Windows version contains licensed code from third parties (some versions contain Pantone color support, licensed PDF components and other third-party Live Effects plug-ins, fonts and other things) which we can't make Open Source or free. The Windows product, with these premium features, is priced at a small fraction of that of our competitors. If Linux and Mac users want these additional premium features then they will also have to pay for them.

We will continue to maintain the existing Windows Xara Xtreme and do minor updates to this. All fixes and improvements are being mirrored in the new cross-platform version we develop in parallel. At some point in time this cross-platform version will become the main Xara X / Xtreme development. It's impossible to say for sure how long this will be - it depends purely on the support we get from the community. It's not likely to be less than many months, maybe even a year.

If you want to help us create a truly great, Open Source, Linux and Mac graphics application and have technical development skills (C++) you can help by donating your time to this project we want to hear from you.

We are particularly interested in Mac developers.

Our staged plan is to invite selected developers to help us work on the early stages of the product, and as we get it to be more useful (and as we port more files) to gradually open up the code-base to a wider audience.

In the short-term (apart from buying a copy of Xara Xtreme for Windows!) there are a few other ways in which you can help right now. If nothing else, please just tell your friends about the project and our plans. The more people who know the better. As the project progresses we will be looking for people to help translate the product, to test it of course, to create example artwork with the product.

If you are interested in following the progress of the Open Source Xara X, we have set up a mail list you can subscribe to which will keep you up to date with progress. There are also separate, more developer orientated mail lists.

Just as we provide financial sponsorship for smaller Open Source projects, we could benefit from larger financial sponsorship ourselves. This will make this project a reality sooner, and better.

If you represent, or work for a larger organisation that you believe could benefit from having a top-notch Open Source Linux or Mac graphics product such as Xara Xtreme, then financial sponsorship of the project will make this happen sooner. Please contact us.

Put simply, we can make a significant difference to the Linux desktop landscape, and the more financial help we have the sooner this will happen and the better this will be.