Backporting Policy

When should you backport changes?

• Whenever a bug or improvement is identified, the fix should be applied to the master branch first. After that, it should be backported to any actively maintained branches. However, if the fix is likely to introduce incompatible changes, backporting may not be necessary. In such cases, the reason for not backporting should be clearly explained.

When should you avoid backporting changes?

• After creating a new release branch (N), the previous active branch (N-1) still needs to be actively maintained. However, the active (N-2) branch may be slowed down or even have its following patches canceled. This is because users generally prefer to upgrade to (N) or (N-1) instead of staying on (N-2). Additionally, maintaining multiple branches can be time-consuming and require significant effort. Therefore, backporting fixes to the (N-2) branch is optional and should be done with the best efforts.

• After the (N) release branch gets stable, the backporting fixes to the (N-2) branch will be stopped except for security fixes. The exception will be a specific request for the backport or security fix reasons.