Xara releases sources for GPL'd Xara LX

The vector graphics package Xara Xtreme so far was only available for Windows. Back in October, the Xara company announced the porting of its flagship product to Linux and Mac OS X. Not only that -- the complete source code should become available, and subject to the GPL license. But at the time they consoled hopes for an immediate release to a later date.

Now the day has come.

Right on time for the opening of the Libre Graphics Meeting in Lyon, France, Xara has published a website with details how to access the sources. (It even looks like they'll grant write access (!) to their subversion repository for some external developers.

Our klik webservice offers recipes for klik://xara (build rev. 676) and klik://xara-latest (build rev. 689) to those...

• ...who do not want to compile Xara LX on their own, or...
• ...who do not want to install Xara LX binaries into the heart of their system, or...
• ...who run a distro where no Xara packages are available.

(As most of you know, klik does not at all "install" in the traditional sense -- klik builds self-contained *.cmg bundles, which run in user space, even directly from a CD-RW medium; if a klik bundle does not work, or if you are fed up with it, just delete the one .cmg file and your system is back to like it was before).

The current 0.3 beta series for the first time allows creation of new *.xar files. (Previous versions only supported opening and playing with the bundled demo files). To get a first impression about Xara [and compare it to klik://inkscape-latest or to klik://karbon-1.5-beta from the KOffice-1.5 beta1   :-)     ],  just open the included demo files. These are to be found at /tmp/app/[number]/usr/bin/Design/ (while xara runs via klik).