Linux has had widespread acceptance and adoption of svg files for a while now. (Gnome has had svg support since 2000, and then there is this program, which has the most recent news from 1999). What I find odd, is that with open source developers working on the problem, why are there so few good solutions?

Here’s what’s around in the svg market for open sourcers: 1. GIMP — great product, lousy name. This has been touted as a Photoshop replacement, but only if you are really interested in replacing Photoshop from a few versions back. Still, it’s a great tool for many of the day-to-day uses for photo editing. The vector tools are quite weak, though. The pen tool has some serious flaws, and for me, if the pen doesn’t work right, what’s the point? 2. Karbon14 — This one is integrated into the Koffice packages. Odd, but the vector tools are really weak in the vector program. There isn’t even a pen tool to use, so I can’t measure how effective it is… 3. Sodipodi — This one is pretty full featured, and has some impressive capabilities. Too bad it isn’t actively being developed anymore… Latest release is 0.34 from 2004. 4. OpenOffice.org Draw — This one is much like Karbon14, and is more geared toward creation of charts and graphs, rather than design work. 5. Inkscape — This suite has a pretty robust set of features (and some that are a bit more esoteric — a fretboard designer?). This was the first open source svg tool that I used that I really said, “huh… I could maybe make this work.” Still some odd omissions… the layers work strangely, and there doesn’t seem to be any way to look into any more depth than just Layer 1 and Layer 2. I can’t speak for anyone else, but I tend to put more than one object on a layer.

Unlike Photoshop, where there are a laymen who are interested in doing some simple photo manipulation things (removing red eye, re-cropping photos, basic color correction — enter Photoshop Elements) there aren’t that many “I’m not a graphic designer” applications for the svg programs, and this may be the problem with open source production of svg applications.

I love Adobe Illustrator as much as the next designer. There can be no doubt that it reigns supreme in the field of svg. Everyone else is just going to have to do what they can to incorporate the features that are already present in Adobe’s software. And I don’t even want an “Illustrator Killer”. I’d just like a little competition.