Just to be sure

I am switching to Mac, now that the Core 2 Duo MacBook Pros are out. Frankly, there is no reason to stick with the PC except for XaraX.

Is anything happening with a MacOS port, either by the company or by open source programmers?

I saw some things on here and it seems some sort of build has been made.

My question is, will a fully-fledged MacOS build appear soon (or ever)? I mean, not a source download that you build yourself, but something a normal user like myself could download, install and use?

I would have thought that the Mac community would be more of a target for Xara Ltd than the Linux one. I don't want to buy Illustrator or use an inferior free product on the Mac and I imagine there are hordes of people who would pay for XaraXtreme which offers quality and value.

I would pay, too. I paid for the Windows version, I would pay for the MacOS version, if it was the same...

From reading the 'mailing list' archives on www.xaraxtreme.org there has been some development for a Mac version of the open source Xtreme. It does appear that there is very little Mac developer input, so the progress is very slow.

Linux has a larger user base than the Mac, so I think that is why the initial development of the open source version has been on that platform.

At the present time it appears that all development for the open source version is on hold until the Xara Development team completes some work on their commercial product or products for an upcoming release. Third party developers appear to be holding off until the core CDraw code is released as open source.

I can only recommend patience at this point in time.

I would pay for a Mac version as well. I would use it even if it wasn't open source on the Mac and even an X-Windows version. I am sure many others would pay for this as well. Something about Mac market share: for a number of years it has been half of the purchasers of new Macs are new to the platform - never used a Mac before, so Mac numbers, like Linux official numbers are skewed for different reasons. Xara Xtreme is all I am using Linux for now. Linux still hasn't got the critical mass for a major platform move, but the Mac is well established. Also Mac users are much more likely to pay for support than Linux users.

I've used linux almost exclusevly since 1997. There are a lot of people who use linux who think everything has to be free (as in beer), but there are a lot of Linux users out there willing to pay. I've bought the linux distribution I use each time it comes out for an update ($30 once a year approx). I do this because I like the features and benefits of it. I would do the same with XaraLX (in fact, I will probably buy the Windows version just to "support" the development of the linux version). I believe there are a lot of linux users out there willing to do the same thing (especially for added features).

Just my $.02

p.s. sorry for the thread jack.