The SVG Open is shaping up fast. The call for papers has been out there for a while now but if you’re quick you can still present a paper or run a workshop but the deadline to submit for papers and courses is April 18 and that’ll be here before you know it. The SVG Open is the conference for people doing SVG. The SVG Open has been running since at least 2002 and seems to get a little broader appeal every year it runs. Look at the broad areas to cover: client-side Javascript toolkits, map overlays like Google’s, widgets in Opera, cell phones and other embedded applications, UI elements in Gnome and KDE, desktop tools like Inkscape. Those are just off the top of my head, that kind of a list just didn’t exist 5 years ago - not for mainstream applications like these. SVG is growing in adoption and I don’t see that slowing down anytime soon.
I’ve been out of the scene for a while but things have really come a long way all of a sudden. There’s some great support across the latest browsers - compare that half-green Firefox 3 to the qualified “about half of the tests passed that test features supported by Firefox” from a few years ago. There are solid, supported tools that make SVG creation accessible to anyone. Inkscape may only consider their release 0.46 less than a 1.0 but it’s a real practical tool that’s adding features in leaps and bounds. Want some graphics to work with? The Open Clip Art Library has piles of subjects covered.
There are more and more compelling reasons to choose SVG every day. If you’re someone who’s been applying SVG already then share what you know and go present it at the Open.