This blog post details the happy ending after the previous blog post, titled "New Inkscape 0.92 breaks your previous works done with Inkscape," published on January 20th. A lot of reactions followed that blog post and the news became viral quickly. That's why I thought it would nice to make another blog post to "close the case". First, thanks a lot for all the support from all the readers through this adventure! I received a lot of support in the dedicated thread on Reddit, on Twitter, and on G+ about it. The fallout of the issue was immediate: the developers of Inkscape quickly realized how big the problem could get as all the machines update to 0.92: "...that update might do no less than break every diagram, map, etc on wikipedia." -Mc on this mailing-list discussion. I was happy my alert brought the spotlight on this problem, giving it a high priority and triggering actions to potentially save this type of super-diagram we all love to see on the GNU/Linux ecosystem. So the news is:

♪ ♫ TADAAAAAA!! ♪ ♫ Inkscape version 0.92.1 released today fixes the problem.

(You can read the releases notes here and download it here). Many thanks to the Inkscape developers for their hard work! In particular, thanks to Mc for the extra elbow grease as he worked day and night on this, and for hanging around on the Pepper&Carrot IRC channel during this time to inform me and the translators of Pepper&Carrot about the progress, giving tips on compilation, and gathering feedback/test cases for the 0.92.1 branch. It was invaluable!

Inkscape 0.92.1 displaying correctly the english translations of episode 9 ; Over 10000 files are now safe!

However, I was also surprised by many reactions around the web. Mainly, how the famous LinuxActionShow spoke about the article on episode 453 at 0:26:55. They missed the point, thinking it was an issue limited to my GNU/Linux machine and an 'upgraded too soon' issue and a rant against FLOSS... Of course I could always downgrade my local Inkscape to 0.91 in a single minute! The 'blame for using FLOSS' was referring to my clients and contributors on Windows/Mac who are installing Inkscape 0.92 from the official Inkscape homepage and working with my sources. They don't have a choice on the Inkscape homepage but to install the 0.92 version and open my sources with it. So, it's not a package management issue or a single Linux machine problem. Everything is not Linux-centric in the FLOSS ecosystem and they missed this point because they kept their mind in this box. Too bad they preferred talking mostly about my attitude. That's typical of journalism: blame the one who raising a concern and avoid talking about the content. Also, I'll pass their assumption about my usage of free software for money reasons...Bleeee...

Screenshot from the LinuxActionShow #453 , speaking about the article

All in all, a lot of time was spent on this. I learned in this adventure how to compile Inkscape, switch branches using Bazaar, and get two installed versions to give feedback and beta-test. I also met the friendly Inkscape team via their dev IRC channel, #Inkscape-devel on Freenode. I'll definitely stay around, and read the channel from time-to-time, update compiled source, run tests, etc... Beta-testing is also in small part why I receive patronage. I just hope it will not end in beta-testing all the packages of my system :-) Note: If more artists using Inkscape around want to participate in beta-testing, I can explain in a future article how to compile Inkscape as I did in the guide "building Krita on Linux for cats". Let me know! Now I'm back on detailing/painting episode 21, which should be released soon.