Provide the BAMOE 8.x Classic BPMN Editor as an independent VS Code extension with its own lifecycle

We request that the Classic BPMN Editor required to maintain BAMOE 8.x / jBPM-compatible BPMN assets be provided and maintained as an independent VS Code extension, with a lifecycle separate from the BAMOE 9.x Developer Tools and New BPMN Editor.

This is important because BAMOE 8.x and BAMOE 9.x are not simply different runtime versions using an interchangeable modeling environment. The project structures and BPMN XML produced and consumed by the different generations of tooling have significant differences.

Customers operating existing BAMOE 8.x applications therefore need a reliable editor capable of maintaining those assets throughout their supported lifecycle and during the transition to BAMOE 9.x.

Today, the Classic Editor is distributed as part of the BAMOE Developer Tools for VS Code. This couples its lifecycle to the BAMOE 9.x tooling. Changes in newer Developer Tools releases have repeatedly affected Classic Editor functionality, even though the Classic Editor is required primarily for maintaining existing assets rather than adopting the BAMOE 9.x modeling model.

At the same time, the Classic Editor is marked for eventual removal. This creates a lifecycle gap for customers that must operate BAMOE 8.x and BAMOE 9.x concurrently during a progressive migration.

We therefore propose:

• Provide the Classic BPMN Editor as a separate, independently versioned VS Code extension.
• Maintain compatibility with the BPMN XML structure and jBPM/BAMOE 8.x modeling capabilities that it is intended to support.
• Decouple its maintenance and release lifecycle from changes made to the BAMOE 9.x New BPMN Editor and project model.
• Keep it available for the period in which supported BAMOE 8.x applications and BAMOE 9.x applications need to coexist.
• Treat preservation of existing BPMN assets as a compatibility requirement, avoiding unintended XML transformations caused solely by opening or maintaining those assets with newer tooling.

The objective is not to prevent the New BPMN Editor from evolving or to maintain two competing editors indefinitely. The objective is to provide a stable compatibility editor for existing jBPM/BAMOE 8.x assets until customers can complete their migration to the BAMOE 9.x application and modeling architecture.

Without such separation, customers may be forced to choose between remaining on an older Developer Tools version or adopting a newer extension that may no longer reliably maintain their existing BAMOE 8.x assets. This makes the tooling lifecycle itself a constraint on otherwise independently planned application migrations.