Hi,
Paul Krill from InfoWorld.com is preparing an on-line presentation of SVG tools. He has indicated that he wants to include Inkscape in his presentation and has contacted us through the Software Freedom Conservancy. I volunteered to answer his questions. I could use some help (and some feedback). I hope to be able to send him a reply in the next day. His questions are indicated by *'s with my tentative replies following. There are a couple of places I could really use some help as indicated.
Thanks,
Tav
* What is the purpose of Inkscape? What are its main functions?
Creating vectorized drawings, from serious artwork to technical illustrations. A good summary of Inkscape functions can be found at:
http://staging.inkscape.org/en/about/features/
(We will be going live with a new website in the near future.)
Inkscape provides an easy to use interface for creating complex drawings. While Inkscape supports most of the SVG 1.1 standard, knowledge of the standard is not directly required.
* What does Inkscape do that other SVG tools do not?
[HELP WANTED (I don't have Illustrator or CoralDraw to compare it to). Tracing? Tiling? File format support? Command-line conversion between file formats?]
Inkscape has a well developed plug-in system that allows users to extend Inkscape's functionality in many unique ways. One area that has been particularly popular is directly driving plotters and engravers including the "Egg-Bot". See:
http://shop.evilmadscientist.com/productsmenu/tinykitlist/171-egg-bot
* Who developed it?
A team of volunteer developers. The original developers were mostly artists who were looking for a tool that allowed them to create the art they envisioned.
* Is Inkscape an open source or commercial product? If it is commercial, can you provide a price range per-seat?
Open source. It can be downloaded from:
* How important is SVG, from your perspective?
Originally SVG was chosen as the native file format for Inkscape as it is an open standard. In a more general historical perspective, SVG did not gain the popularity on the Web it deserved due the lack of support in Internet Explorer and due to Adobe losing interest after purchasing Macromedia (i.e. Flash).
The inclusion of SVG as part of HTML5 and the addition of SVG rendering support in IE9 has resulted in a dramatic increase in interest in SVG. Adobe is once again on board and sees SVG (and HTML5) as the future. SVG is starting to appear on major websites such as this graphic from the New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/02/20/movies/among-the-oscar-contend...
* Can you provide some screen shots or URLs with visuals of Inkscape?
Certainly. [HELP WANTED, I assume that he'll want something he can use on his website.]
See: http://inkscape.org/screenshots/index.php?lang=en
* I understand from a user of Inkscape that it has not been upgraded in a while. Are there any plans to upgrade it soon?
We will have a major upgrade in the very near future. Inkscape's rendering engine underwent a complete rewrite resulting in a significant speed up in rendering complex drawings while reducing memory use. There were a number of regressions that have had to be dealt with. We are down to a small number of blocking bugs (one?).
Tentative release notes for the upgrade can be found at:
http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/Release_notes/0.49
* Who is your employer and what is your title there?
I am self-employed as a writer and software developer. I represent Inkscape in the W3C SVG working group.