A thought just occured to me: would it be useful for someone to create a wiki page that contains a list of *all* the SVG features (maybe the contents page of some SVG specification), so that we can check off the things we have, and people like me can see what remains to be completed?

----------------------------------------

From: "Joshua A. Andler" <joshua@...533...> Sent: 03 July 2007 12:21 To: joel@...1709... Subject: Re: [Inkscape-devel] n00b questions

joel@...1709... wrote:

Hi, Given that I'm pretty new to the Inkscape developement world, I had a couple questions.

The first is this: what hurdles stand between Inkscape today, and v1.0?

Better SVG Compliance. I believe the last discussion put it at SVG Tiny 1.1 being fully supported. As great as Inkscape is in the general vector realm, we are first and foremost (specifically) an SVG editor. I also recall there being goals for falling below a certain amount of bugs or something along those lines.

If you're roughly on a 6 month release cycle, that puts v1.0 at least 5 years away!

Surely that's not right?

The above addresses this. If we had full support tomorrow (which won't happen), the next release could be targeted 1.0.

I worry that until Inkscape gets to >v1.0 it will be seen as "experimental" and "unstable" by many. I worry that until 1.0, the app will languish, not attracting the user base or developer base it deserves.. Companies won't trust it, and Ubuntu probably won't bundle it for example.

Being with the project for a few years, I can tell you it's seen nothing but steady growth and adoption. It seems that once people understand why it's not "1.0", they get past the superficial numbering. Honestly, if people choose software based on version number, they're not properly evaluating all candidates. That said, if people view Inkscape as a general purpose vector editor and not an SVG editor, if we hit 1.0 without full color management support and rockstar pdf output, things would look really bad to them.

Oh and as for Ubuntu bundling it... two of our core devs are Ubuntu developers, so if we will ever stand a chance, it probably lies more with their powers of persuasion (and user demand) than a superficial number. ;) For the record, the first thing that Ubuntu utilizes on your computer at startup (GRUB) is only 0.97, or rythmbox which is a default install is at 0.11, etc... so I don't think numbers matter that much.

So... if you want to get things moving toward 1.0 you can either polish up the rough edges you see, or work toward SVG Tiny compliance. Either way, it moves Inkscape forward. :)

-Josh

P.S. I'm sure others will elaborate more and make me look like a fool. ;)