Importing Visio .vsd into Linux program?

[Ted Roche]

My fellow developer is using Windows and is using Visio as his ERD
development tool. We're trying to find some way to share the document
back-and-forth, hopefully with the ability to markup and edit. The
native .VSD format is proprietary and it doesn't seem like other tools
know how to use it. EPS and WMF/EWF work, but send over a structured
diagram as a single block that's difficult to edit. SVG sounded like a
great idea - an XML standard format, right? - but even after finding
the SVG filter for OO.o [1] I found the Microsoft Visio export uses
proprietary extensions[2] to the SVG format (where have we heard that
before?) to handle icons and wrapped text, which are present in the
original document. There seem to be another couple formats we could
try, but before wearing thin the client's patience, I thought I'd ask
here if anyone has found a successful way to share Visio documents in
Linux/FOSS. (And telling the client to stop using the tool he prefers
is not a practical option).

Both OO.o Draw with the import filter installed and InkScape do not
like the SVG diagram. Each can load it, but textboxes are page-wide in
Draw and are blacked out in InkScape and Gnome Image Viewer.

[1] http://www.ipd.uka.de/~hauma/svg-import/
[2]
http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/SVG_User_Experiences#Problems_importing_from_Visio_save

or: http://preview.tinyurl.com/2v3b27

--
Ted Roche
Ted Roche & Associates, LLC
http://www.tedroche.com