Comment 5 for bug 170225

(You didn't notice it until now? not a regression then… ;-)
Yes, all images are linked with absolute pathnames in URIs now.

related reports that have recently dealt with issues of
 a) filename vs. URI
 b) relative vs absolute path
(besides RFEs for improved linked bitmap options):

bug #168484 lets Inkscape use URIs instead of local file names (comment #6)
bug #386069 fixed embedding of absolute path names URIs for linked images and
bug #386664 needs to replace absolute with relative URIs when exporting to ZIP.