Nobody is going to move a dotfile as a breaking change in any established software
We have oodles of counterexamples to this.
GIMP did it, Blender did it, DOSBox did it, Libreoffice did it, Skype did it, Wireshark did it, ad nauseum.
It’s not really as big a deal as you make it to be (or a big deal at all).
You have a transitional period where you look for config files in both locations, and mark the old location as obsolete.
We have oodles of counterexamples to this. GIMP did it, Blender did it, DOSBox did it, Libreoffice did it, Skype did it, Wireshark did it, ad nauseum. It’s not really as big a deal as you make it to be (or a big deal at all). You have a transitional period where you look for config files in both locations, and mark the old location as obsolete.