Inkscape has its roots in the program Gill (GNOME Illustrator application) created by Raph Levian of Ghostscript fame. This project was expanded on by the Sodipodi program. A different set of goals led to the split off of the current Inkscape development effort.

The goal of the writers of Inkscape is to produce a program that can take full advantage of the SVG standard. This is not a small task. A a link to the road map for future development can be found on the Inkscape website. Of course, you are welcome to contribute!

Instructions on installing Inkscape can be found on the Inkscape website. Full functionality of Inkscape requires additional helper programs to be installed, especially for importing and exporting files in different graphic formats. Check the log file (Linux: ~/.inkscape/extension-errors.log) for missing programs.