My general impression of the cairo "surfaces" is:
> ImageSurface/png - support is very good gtk/xlib - support
> is very good ps/pdf/svg are usable but less mature and
> still developing so there may be occasional problems
> drawing specific items ps - it used to embed bitmap images
> but now most output is vector based eps - is not supported
> yet, but may be in a future version
This was my impression too - that it used to be raster PS but now uses
vector, but the web page seems to be claiming otherwise. In any case,
the LGPL/MPL (mozilla public license not to be confused with
matplotlib) seems to preclude our using it as our "core" renderer.
Unfortunately, Agg itself recently switched over to a GPL license, but
at least we have the 2.4 code base under BSD. We'll be in the same
position as enthought and a few other companies who are relying on the
BSD agg branch. At this state I think it advisable to make sure the
cairo backend stays up to snuff in case the agg situation eventually
becomes untenable, but agg is fairly stable and doesn't import
anything, event the C++ standard library, so 2.4 should be good for
some time to come. Hopefully the community (including us) will
maintain it.
Sigh,
JDH