It's about the easy SVG conversion and getting TikZ as result, in perfect quality. It's not that TikZ made it. But now we can use TikZ on it, use the capabilities we can see in
http://www.texample.net/tikz/examples/ , to annotate (SVG) graphics, to combine with LaTeX labels and notation. Tux was it for fun. It could have been an arbitrary technical drawing instead. It's about drawing or receiving SVG with a graphic software program, and re-using it natively within TeX.