Inkscape

I'd been an Illustrator user for years -- since 2.0 for Windows! I design visual elements mainly for my company's software projects, and occasionally for friends who ask me to channel my Dad, who was a visual artist and taught me to emulate his style. (My work PC today is the illustration workstation Dad bought in 2003, which I inherited when he passed away in 2004)

I quit buying Illustrator for myself at AI10 because I just couldn't see the value of new upgrades, and as a matter of conscience, I refuse to personally purchase anything containing Macrovision's horrifying node-locked protection scheme. I tried to switch to Sodipodi earlier this decade and couldn't quite achieve lift, so I kept a Windows VM running on Ubuntu Linux in order to keep AI10 alive.

Then Inkscape came along and made AI10 -- and the Windows VM where it runs -- obsolete. Every feature I actually *used* in Illustrator exists, and is easier to interact with, in Inkscape. The native SVG support is encouraging, and the import/export capabilities work beautifully for me.

I've used Inkscape for a number of production illustration tasks now; Adobe, I'm sorry, but I just don't love you any more.

I recently got a new laptop and I tried Inkscape instead of trying to make my very old copy of Corel Draw run on a new box.

The learning curve on Inkscape was near zero. User interface is significantly better in dozens of small ways that really make it much easier to use and focus on the art.

This is a fantastic program, and I think I've only touched 10% of its functionality. Highly recommended.

I am a software developer and I actually use Inkscape a lot for technical drawings. Vector graphics are perfect for that task, and the end result is much, MUCH more aesthetically pleasing than your typical Visio diagram. Use it when you're making diagrams for that next executive presentation. Your boss will love you.

Illustration commercial programs have become bloated, some for many versions ago ceased to be practical by adding features that move away from their original function.
Inkscape has come not only to bring an open source tool, but also is a compact vector illustration program, which uses an open format such as SVG which, despite having some limitations compared to their commercial counterparts, makes his work so great , quickly and with advantages.
Since its inception has used the alpha channel, layers, pressure and other pointer caractgerísticas that were late on other programs.
Although exports to PNG and PDF files only, appears to be sufficient in the current environment, but is missing the ability to handle Pantone, which we know has a high license fee.
In many ways, Inkscape has been a major booster for the adoption of Linux, and to say that the image of distributions and Linux programs owe Inkscape.

Great work. I have been using it for years on a regular basis to produce my figures for scientific publications and it is doing an awesome job (I love the LaTeX formula feature :) ). THANKS !