Re: is .xcf the default/popular format for GIMP users?

> Let me give you instead the perspective of a
> one time standards developer (for computer graphics
> programming languages GKS and CGM): very probably
> XCF will NOT be a "standard of the future".

Who said it should be? GIMP developers have never intended XCF to be a
"standard", or to be useful for image interchange between
applications. It is GIMP's own format, used to save your work between
GIMP sessions, and permanently with all layers etc included. Nothing
more. In fact, one can see it as counter-productive that other
applications "learn" to  display XCF images, as that means people will
then complain if/when the XCF format changes. (GIMP itself will of
course be backward compatible and know to read also old XCF files, but
other apps might not then understand newer XCF images.)

--tml