geminiguy - right... I have seen your comments on SVG here...
seems this is a big interest of your's and mine, and many others.

In your reply, you did comment: "I have yet to have success with your scribus conversion method, although admit I only gave one half-hearted attempt so far."

On that point... there is really nothing to it, but, you need to burn a copy
of the teenpup-2008 to do this with.

You know a lot of interesting history regarding [Xara for Linux] development !

So far as the entire SVG "problem"... I really feel it is largely a waste of time to debate why SVG support isnt better in the Linux version of Xara.
Xara has, already, done a great job of incorporating SVG completely into
their commercial release... so... all the work is done. What we're left with is more the issue... which you also discuss... of further developing xaralx. Porting the supposed free code over to Linux. I am not a code porter over
to linux person. This is really where we should be looking... advertising
for capable code porters.

Regarding your comments on funding continued xaralx development... this
isnt going to happen, linuxwise. If a program isnt going to be freely distributed, and developed by volunteers, it isnt really going to be a Linux program at all.
While there would likely be lots of people willing to pay for a commercialized linux compatible xara derivative, it wouldnt be feasible, when Inkscape and other programs provide virtually the same functionality for free.

The engine issue is another non-issue in my book. It simply is free to use.
No other engine is needed, except to make xaralx fit some purist dream.
Realistically, if we're going to use xaralx, we should also recognize where it came from.