At the risk of being flamed, am I right in thinking that Xara seem to be spending considerable programming effort on porting XaraX over to Linux, when in fact as a paying Windows customer I'd much prefer them to be improving the Windows version instead of working on giving away what we've paid for?

OK, I think XaraX is great and I also have two other Xara products, and I think they are all brilliant.

However, I am getting increasingly concerned about XaraX (including Xtreme). There are huge lists floating around with suggestions on advancing the XaraX feature set. Wouldn't Xara's time be better spent improving XaraX's EPS and PDF import/export abilities and it's colour management (CYMK simulation) plus anything from the endless lists of suggestions? As opposed to porting it to give away.

This is either going to flop completely (meaning it was a waste of time porting) or it's going to kill the product as a commercial product. It's pretty obvious that if Linux coders drastically improve the free version (essentially the current commercial version) then all that is required is a port back to Windows and who in their right mind would then pay Xara for the same thing?

All well and good, but then what about things that are needed for pro or serious use that Linux coders might not have the resources or inclination to develop, such as better colour management and import/export, areas in which XaraX is lacking and, contrary to the usual lists of requests, are pretty basic, essential features of a modern graphics program.

I'd love to hear an alternative view with sound reasoning, as I am quite concerned at the moment and seriously wondering whether XaraX has a future or whether I should be saving to switch to Illustrator or DRAW.