[XaraXtreme-dev] ... Pong

[Thomas Zastrow <listen@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Charles and all the others,

I like Xara on Linux very much, but I haven't the time to start 
contributing code. So, I decided to do something other for the program: 
I wrote an article about Xara on Pro-Linux.de, created a (sub-)forum on 
opendtp.de and, last not least, talked to some 
Linux-OpenSource-graphic-related people about Xara. When coming to the 
question, why they wouldn't help the project, the answer was *always* 
because it isn't completly free.

I read the mails on this list today and think, that there are still some 
misunderstandings in the community. Perhaps it could be useful to write 
something like an "open letter" to the community where you describe 1.) 
what the closed library exactly does and 2.) why it isn't also opened.

Beside that, I think that we have a typical clash between the  
OpenSource- and the commercial-world. It isn't for the first time that 
this happened, think of the discussions in the early years of KDE when 
QT wasn't OpenSource. In this case, the solution was to release QT under 
a double license: One free and one for commercial purposes. Perhaps this 
could also be a solution for Xara?

And there's another reason which detains developers from Xara. In the 
past, there were a lot of commercial programs for Linux which were 
stopped after the first or a few releases. Think of Kylix, FrameMaker, 
WordPerfect, ... the Linux-development of all these great programs was 
stopped after the company didn't get the economic goals they desired. 
Today, under a modern Linux-Distribution, it isn't possible to use these 
programs because of no-availability, elapsed licenses or 
library-dependencies. There is an eligible fear in the community that 
this could happen to Xara too. So, one more point for an open letter ;-)

Thanx again for that great program. I would also buy a commercial 
version ;-)

Best,

Tom

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