In reply to Purple Bob.

Hi Purple Bob

I'll run through each of your feedback items below:

"we see no reason why any small business using Canvas should have to cover the costs of this"
I'm not sure what cost you are referring to here?

"A couple of years or more ago almost all Developers including yourself, were hailing what a wonderful thing Canvas and the Woo Framework was"
That's correct, that was the standard practice for almost all theme developers at the time, until theme developers began to realize the shortcomings of this approach.

"And you’re now betting on the core Customiser and Gutenberg because you think those “MIGHT” be the future"
Customizer has been in WordPress for a long time already, and Gutenberg is the future - I know you might have trouble accepting that from me, but there are a lot of other WordPress core developers that don't work at Automattic who will be able to give you an unbiased opinion on that. I'd encourage you to get involved in the project, it's open source and could use your feedback!

"And note that regardless of how you feel about your latest ideas, they still aren’t even properly off the drawing board."
I'm not sure why you feel this way, I respect your opinion but I'd love to try and understand more - having said that we stand by our belief that this is the right decision. Perhaps we can agree to disagree here?

"either that or you have to absorb the cost yourselves, when you can’t or don’t want to make it backward compatible"
With regards to cost, again, I'm not sure what you are referring to? I've already tackled the issue of backwards compatibility in the post on woocommerce.com.

"Without being forced into this impossible and costly corner you have now decided to create for us"
Just to reiterate, you aren't being forced to change themes. Canvas isn't going to suddenly stop working, and you have a year within to think about this change and make an informed decision about it. I'd love to know more about the "cost" you have mentioned a few times in your reply.

Thanks for the feedback, always happy to answer!