Open Source Development
Xara Xtreme for Linux (or Xara Xtreme Linux Edition) is the open source version of Xara Xtreme. Formerly, it was called Xara Xtreme LX or just Xara LX; the abbreviation LX stands for Linux. The "LX" name is retained in some places (for example, the executable is still called "xaralx").
The first version was released for Linux in October 2005, and Xara Group Ltd announced it will release the source code of the trimmed down version under a free software licence, the GPL, and seek community help in porting it over to Linux and Mac OS X using the wxWidgets toolkit.
At the opening of the Libre Graphics Meeting 2006 in Lyon, France, Xara released most of the source code of Xara Xtreme for Linux in an updated website with details on how to access the sources. According to the Xara Xtreme for Linux homepage, the released source code contains "the majority of the Xara Xtreme source code". Currently, the only part of Xara Xtreme for Linux that isn't under GPL is the CDraw rendering engine, that is only available in the form of static libraries for a few selected CPU architectures and at that only with support for the GCC C++ compiler, though reportedly Xara is working on preparing that code for publication as well.
Xara has also granted write access to their subversion repository for some external developers. The website also carries stable and nightly Linux builds.
The 0.3 beta series for the first time allows use of the new *.xar file format for the open source version. Previous versions only supported opening and playing with bundled demo files. Version 0.5 was the first to also have functional save feature. The current beta version is 0.7.
A version for Mac OS X is not yet working but is under development, and there is a call for developers on the open source project web site.
The progress of the Linux version has stalled and the program's website has not been updated since August 2006. No commits to SVN source code repository has been happening for same period of time.
A new project, xarino, was created in December 2008, which provides access to the project's source code. A new mailing list was established in May 2009.
Read more about this topic: Xara Photo & Graphic Designer
Famous quotes containing the words open, source and/or development:
““What care I for a goose-feather bed,
With the sheet turned down so bravely, O?
For to-night I shall sleep in a cold open field,
Along with the wraggle taggle gipsies, O!””
—Unknown. The Wraggle Taggle Gipsies (l. 33–36)
“Life has no other discipline to impose, if we would but realize it, than to accept life unquestioningly. Everything we shut our eyes to, everything we run away from, everything we deny, denigrate or despise, serves to defeat us in the end. What seems nasty, painful, evil, can become a source of beauty, joy and strength, if faced with an open mind. Every moment is a golden one for him who has the vision to recognize it as such.”
—Henry Miller (1891–1980)
“Every new development for the last three centuries has brought men closer to a state of affairs in which absolutely nothing would be recognized in the whole world as possessing a claim to obedience except the authority of the State. The majority of people in Europe obey nothing else.”
—Simone Weil (1909–1943)