RE: [XaraXtreme-dev] Ping

["Charles Moir" <CharlesM@xxxxxxxx>]

> But the BIG question is still; what about CDRAW?

But why is this the big question?

The source code of all the product is available with the exception of
CDraw rendering core. This doesn't stop the product working. We make the
binary of this available for free to be distributed with Xara Xtreme.
(And increasing numbers of distros are distributing completely closed
source products such as Flash Player and Adobe Reader, and most Linux
users have these installed even where they are not distributed as part
of the OS). The lack of CDraw source code certainly doesn't stop Xtreme
being progressed and developed by any interested developers if they were
interested in helping us progress the product.

So isn't it a bit of red-herring to be focussed on this small part only?

We've held back on CDraw partly because it's simply not necessary to
have the source code of this to develop, improve, fix bugs, add new
features or all the other things that I'd imagine most users would be
looking for. It's obvious this part is complete, and works perfectly
well (as you can tell using the product), so why the fixation on CDraw?

The original plan and hope was, if you recall, that *together* the
community and Xara would help create a world (and Microsoft and Adobe)
beating product. Well Xara have put a huge amount of time, money and
effort into the product so far, and we've got great result, but there's
not much 'together' in this so far.

So we still hope and look forward to the time where the community can
help us develop the product and achieve that original goal to create the
best graphics product that has ever existed on the Linux (and other)
platforms.  We're still working very hard to make that happen.

Charles