Can we please add stencil set X to draw.io?

[davidjgraph]

"It would be useful, there's no reason not to add it."

OK, in theory, but the answer most of the time is no, because:

1. We cannot take stencil sets as-is. We always have to perform due diligence on who created them and check the licensing.

2. Size is an issue. All stencils in draw.io are supplied in all draw.io flavours. In the online reference deployment, app.diagrams.net, everyone downloads all of the stencils at editor load time. That's 170TB a month that we have to pay for. Dynamic loading is very complex, particularly for downstream draw.io integrations. We had a lot of problems with it and had to get rid.

3. It won't be maintenance free and we'll be the ones that have to maintain them. Icon sets change, there are hardly any stencil sets that have not been updated or evolved since their initial creation.

4. draw.io is a mature product now. All the sets that a large number of people needed have been implemented. What's left are the more niche sets and domains. If we took one niche domain we'd have to add hundreds, see (2).

5. There exist ways in which draw.io can be setup with additional stencil sets.

6. We're very often not experts in the domain of the set being requested. C4 was a good example of this. We've no idea what the set is for or what it should look like. It was a popular request, but we had requests over and over to fix details that we didn't properly understand. If there is a community looking for a set, they are better placed to create the set correctly.

Yes, there exist sets in the core product that shouldn't really be there, we know. But, we cannot remove sets once they are in.