Backporting policy

[Warren Togami]

Panu Matilainen wrote:
>>I think we should also consider upgrading in cases where all of the 
>>following conditions are met:
>>1) Absolutely zero cases where API changes would effect any distribution 
>>OR 3rd party software, because the updated package is a leaf node on the 
>>dependency tree.  I suspect screen may be another leaf node.
>>2) Where having a common %{version} across multiple distributions would 
>>make it easier to maintain security updates, because patches need not be 
>>ported and tested multiple times.
>>3) Only by consensus of the list membership.
>>
>>Thoughts?
> 
> 
> I would add to that
> 4) New version doesn't have incompatible configuration file format changes
> 
> I suppose most end user applications can more-or-less migrate old settings 
> to new format in such a case, which I think is ok, but if not then user 
> settings should not break when upgrading a package. Of course it's even
> more important for server software and such.
> 

#1 above didn't exactly cover "command line options" that might change, 
so that should be added to the requirements too.

Warren