[theme-reviewers] Why can't theme authors have a second version of a theme?

[Bryan Hadaway]

*Please take a step back and read the following everyone, including you
@Trent.*

The direction of this discussion is moot, silly and the idea of a vote is
absurd so please let's move past that.

Please, no more arguing or subjective speculation and let's look at a
rational and logical outline of the problem objectively. Our end-goal
always (for admins, theme reviewers, theme developers and the general
community), is to find out what works best for the end-user.

https://make.wordpress.org/themes/handbook/guidelines/license-theme-name-credit-links-up-sell-themes/#theme-name

First of all, there's really no hard-and-fast rule in the guidelines that
covers this exact scenario, I would say this issue is pretty gray and open
to interpretation and while we (CyberChimps) don't expect special
treatment, the consideration of making an exception is always on the table
if there's a good reason and we ask please to look at this with fresh eyes.

1. We're not going to retire the original Responsive theme found here:

http://wordpress.org/themes/responsive

While the idea that millions depend on Responsive is a little much to
grasp, let's be generous and say there's at least 100k active users that
rely on Responsive. I'm sure we can all agree with that, although doing the
right thing doesn't require a quota.

2. We've completely overhauled Responsive. While it's still definitely
Responsive (check it out yourself:
https://wordpress.org/themes/download/responsive-ii.0.0.1.zip), it has been
updated to the point where it will without a doubt destroy any current
website on version 1.0 that automatically updates to version 2.0, and we
all know that even with a warning message (that I myself kept pushing for:
http://wordpress.org/ideas/topic/upgradeupdate-warnings), people are still
going to blindly update without a second thought and certainly without
making a backup.

3. The logical solution? Release this major version as its own separate
entity, this happens all the time in the plugin repo, makes sense and is
not the least bit confusing.

a. We fully intend on continuing to support version 1.0 with bug fixes.

b. We're also ready to release a completely new version of Responsive,
which isn't a completely different theme so still needs to retain the name
in some form, it would actually be confusing not to. Whether we call it
"Responsive II" (makes the most sense), "Responsive Neu" or whatever, that
is out prerogative, because "Responsive" is not a generic term in this
sense. Other may not use it in their theme name, but we can not because of
special treatment, but because Responsive, in terms of WordPress theme
names is our proven common law trademark.

c. It's not confusing. In the 1.0 version's description at the top and in
its forum, it's not difficult to place a note:

"NOTE - There is a completely new version of Responsive here:
wordpress.org/themes/responsive-ii. Upgrading is optional, but if you
choose to upgrade it will break your old installs, so you need to prepare
your new site in a testing environment before going live."
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