With the consideration of the possible removal of a parent theme being put on the table then it must be clearly stated (and understood?) by child-theme developers that if the parent is removed their child theme will be removed.<br>
<br>Now, with possible mis-understandings from the child-theme developers (as expected from the apparent mis-understanding of the theme developement checklist by current developers), the first time this happens could be a big deal, especially if a parent theme developer chooses to act in an unfriendly manner and requests their theme removed for no other reason that to spite the child-theme developers. Of course this is a worst case type of scenario but one to be considered if the theme directory is going to create these inter-dependencies.<br>
<br>The other side of the coin may be: no parent theme may be removed, unless all child themes are removed with their respective author's permission first. Which, of course, now leads to a different hurdle to overcome: all theme authors must be made aware if their theme is accepted into the repository they essentially have no control or say over its distribution afterward.<br>
<br>Let me also write, I think child themes are a great function. I've used them for several clients. I recommend them if a person wants to make changes to a theme that is still being developed and actively maintained to help insure forward compatibilities.<br>
<br>One more thought, perhaps a separate repo for child-themes at which the end-user is made clearly aware they are using these themes at their own risk to the factors mentioned above and throughout this thread.<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">
On Wed, Jul 7, 2010 at 7:47 AM, Chip Bennett <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:chip@chipbennett.net">chip@chipbennett.net</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;">
<div id=":fh" class="ii gt">So, I suppose that we could just not allow a parent theme to be removed upon<br>
request, unless all children are also removed?</div></blockquote></div><br>