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Date: Thu, 3 Sep 2015 16:30:01 -0400
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From: DJ Delorie <dj AT delorie DOT com>
To: geda-user AT delorie DOT com
In-reply-to: <BC7E3E69-4914-4654-B020-1338C71E0CDB@noqsi.com> (message from
	John Doty on Thu, 3 Sep 2015 13:07:13 -0600)
Subject: Re: [geda-user] New experimental netlist features
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Note that this is not a problem new ot the industry; Fedora just went
through a transition from yum to dnf for pretty much the same reasons
as we have, and had pretty much the same arguments as we are.  They
ended up with a solution that best fit their users, we need to come up
with one that best fits ours.

Do we want to retain backwards compatibility?  Yes.  Do we want to do
so at the expense of new development?  No.  How do we reconcile these
two goals?  I don't know, and nobody has offered a workable solution.

We certainly can't just leave things the way they are.  That's the
road to stagnation and doom as other projects innovate right past us.
We want to encourage, not discourage, development of our tools.

We certainly can't just ignore our existing user base either, though.
gEDA is known for its hackability and that unfortunately locks us into
APIs that were never intended, but those hacks do some pretty awesome
things.

So how do we proceed?  I think each side needs to consider the needs
of the other side, and try to come up with a solution that leads to a
seamless transition from the old way to the new way.  We can't afford
to either choose "don't change anything" or "replace the old with the
new".

We need a third option that involves some compromise from each side.