Any timeframe for releasing CDraw?

**ajdlinux** · 28 July 2006, 10:35 PM

Could anyone at Xara give us a timeframe for GPLing CDraw? It was only today that I realised CDraw was still proprietary, so at least for now I'll have to stop my Debian packaging efforts.

**Charles Moir** · 28 July 2006, 10:39 PM

Soon.

**accessD** · 31 July 2006, 09:44 AM

It would be great.

XaraXtreme with PDF import filter will be better Acrobat Browser for sure.
It loads probably at same time and render probably 5-times faster.

And it could be nice standalone Browser based on CDraw

**Charles Moir** · 31 July 2006, 10:51 PM

CDraw on its own doesn't help create a stand-alone browser, as it's just the really low level, and very dumb, rendering engine. In order to create a stand-alone renderer that can take .xar files we need a much larger chunk of Xara Xtreme LX. However we do hope to create exactly this at some point. i.e. a simple library that can render .xar files, that could then be used by third parties for a number of things, such as browser plug-in, or stand-alone file viewer.

**ajdlinux** · 01 August 2006, 03:59 AM

Originally Posted by Charles Moir

Soon.

Would that be sometime 2nd half this year? A few mths?

**Charles Moir** · 02 August 2006, 09:23 AM

We're not completely clear when this will be - sooner rather than later we hope. But can I ask why your interested? What do you want to do with CDraw? It's probably not a lot of use outside Xara LX.

**ajdlinux** · 02 August 2006, 08:39 PM

I ask because I'm the sort of person who won't install proprietary software even if it's better than open source/free software (GNU) alternatives.

At the moment libs/x86/libCDraw.a is the only non-free library on my system.

The other reason I ask is that I want to get this packaged for Debian, hopefully in 'main', not 'non-free'.

**Charles Moir** · 02 August 2006, 10:55 PM

Yep we are aware that without the complete product being GPL we can't be in Debian and other pure free distributions. You are not alone in wanting this, and this is the main reason we'll be releasing all the code GPL as soon as we can. We need to be included in 'Main' of Debian, and derivatives such as Ubuntu. So we appreciate your support, and once we've released the last parts as GPL, anything you can do to lobby for inclusion in any distribution will be greatly appreciated. I hope you do not have too long to wait before this is possible.

**ajdlinux** · 04 August 2006, 09:40 PM

Great. Is it some sort of external licensing issue or are you just waiting for it to be ready?

I'll probably file an ITP (Intent to Package) for Debian once CDraw is GPLed.

Also will CDraw always remain a static library or will it be released as a shared library/have it as a configure option?

**abligh** · 06 August 2006, 12:44 PM

Originally Posted by ajdlinux

Great. Is it some sort of external licensing issue or are you just waiting for it to be ready?

I'll probably file an ITP (Intent to Package) for Debian once CDraw is GPLed.

It's already packaged in debian, in non-free (thanks to Joachim Breitner)

Also will CDraw always remain a static library or will it be released as a shared library/have it as a configure option?

Initially it will stay as a static library. There's no point having a dynamic library until you have a stable API/ABI (especially when LX is the only application hat uses it) - doing otherwise will only lead to tears before bedtime.

We hope to have a separate library presenting a stable API/ABI that will render .xar files (on the long list of things to do).

Alex