Thomas Worthington dubitò:
As this problem has grown, I've started to question the value of having "Save as inkscape SVG" produce ".svg" suffixed files. Is it not a better idea, design-wise, to indicate that a file is not "pure" SVG with a different suffix such as .isvg or something similar? I have already sent Inkscape-SVG files to other designers by mistake; with a different suffix this would be a mistake which would be apparent as I selected the files for attachment to my emails.
Should Inkscape change the default suffix for its own filetypes?
Fortunately this is not needed, as the situation is quite different.
The usual inkscape-produced SVG files contain additional metadata useful for editing that can be discarded for viewing without any loss.
It's similar to adding comments in a C file: while they are useful while touching the code, stripping them out gives the same executable.
So the "Pure SVG" option strips those metadata leaving a SVG that can be more difficult to edit (e.g. no shapes, only paths) but that will be rendered in the same way.
This is especially useful when publishing a drawing on the web as it can reduce the file size considerably.
