There's really no way around the components they don't own -- they can't give them away, so there'll always be a pay version for professionals, advanced users and people who don't like to have the light version of anything
I think it's really cool the way they're embracing the open source movement and opening up to other operating systems -- it's a good move for them and endusers (and future endusers) alike.
I've used quite a few vector based image editors, including much more expensive packages -- including the great, but now unnecessary, Deneba Canvas. The bottom line for me is nothing is as effectively intuitive, powerful and flexible as Xara -- and now, with the ability to apply editable raster filters in real time (a favorite feature from when I used Canvas (called "sprite filters") basically eliminates any need for strictly raster based image editors, in my opinion. The release of Xara X pretty much ended my maintenance of vector and raster graphic design software on my system, Xara is all I use. Xara is one of those applications that has kept me tethered to Windows over the years -- with it becoming available on Linux, as well as my favorite editor and a few other apps, I'd find myself using windows significantly less if not for this community.
