I am developing a free theme and users can download it from WordPress.org. I am working on pro version of the same theme. What should be the name of the pro version's folder?
My theme's name is BizPoint. If I name the pro version's folder as 'BizPoint-Pro', whatever changes the user has done using customizer, are lost. If I use pro version's folder name as 'BizPoint', users won't be able to install pro version without deleting the free theme.
How is this conflict handled?
It is best to make the Pro version a plugin instead of a theme. That way you don't have duplicate code bases, and the theme_mods are not split, and the updates are separate. Put the hooks you need into the free theme, and your Pro plugin will have no trouble.
There is no conflict as those are two different themes and data structure should not be expected to be the same. Expecting data reuse is maybe a nice to have but in practice it is hard to do.
A more realistic approach is to have data migration as part of the activation of the "pro" theme, ot just have it as explicit UI featuer when you detect that there is a "free" theme installed on the server.
