Xara Xtreme LX, also frequently called Xara LX for short, is an open source version of the commercial 2D

2D

2D or II-D may refer to:* 2-d, two-dimensional space* 2D geometric model* Bi-dimensional space* 2D computer graphics* 2D , a member of the virtual band Gorillaz* Oflag II-D* Stalag II-D* Transcription factor II D...

 vector graphics editor

Vector graphics editor

A vector graphics editor is a computer program that allows users to compose and edit vector graphics images interactively on a computer and save them in one of many popular vector graphics formats, such as EPS, PDF, WMF, SVG, or VML....

, Xara Xtreme

Xara Xtreme

Xara Photo & Graphic Designer is a 2D vector graphics editor created by the British software company Xara, which was acquired by German company MAGIX AG in 2007, and now operates as a wholly owned subsidiary. It was previously sold under the names Xara Studio, Xara X and Xara Xtreme...

. The abbrevation LX stands for Xara Xtreme on Linux.

The first version was released for Linux in October 2005, and Xara Ltd

Xara

Xara is a UK-based software company founded in 1981. It has developed software for a variety of computer platforms, in chronological order: The Acorn Atom, BBC Micro, Z88, Atari ST, Acorn Archimedes, Microsoft Windows and Linux. It was originally called Computer Concepts, Ltd.; the company name...

 announced it will release the source code of the trimmed down version under the GPL

GNU General Public License

The GNU General Public License is the most widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU Project....

 and seek community help in porting it over to Linux

Linux

Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...

 and Mac OS X

Mac OS X

Mac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...

 using the wxWidgets

WxWidgets

wxWidgets is a widget toolkit for creating graphical user interfaces for cross-platform applications. wxWidgets enables a program's GUI code to compile and run on several computer platforms with minimal or no code changes...

toolkit.

At the opening of the Libre Graphics Meeting 2006http://www.libregraphicsmeeting.org/ in Lyon, France, Xara has released most of the source code of Xara LX in an updated website with details on how to access the sources. According to Xara LX homepage, the released source code contains "the majority of the Xara Xtreme source code". Currently, the only part of Xara LX that isn't under GPL is the CDraw rendering engine, though reportedly Xara is working on preparing that code for publication as well.

Xara has also granted write access to their subversion repository for some external developers. The website also carries stable and nightly Linux builds.

The 0.3 beta series for the first time allows use of the new *.xar file format for the open source version. Previous versions only supported opening and playing with bundled demo files. Version 0.5 was the first to also have functional save feature.