[infinispan-dev] API stability policy for major vs minor vs patch releases

[Bela Ban]

+1000. Although I can't claim I've never (unknowingly) violated this 
principle...

On 2/23/11 6:00 PM, Paul Ferraro wrote:
> In my course of upgrading AS6 from 4.2.0.Final to 4.2.1.CR3, I came
> across a NoSuchMethodError.  Specifically, a couple AS components
> utilize DistributionManager.isLocal(String), which was dropped from the
> public API sometime after 4.2.1.CR1.
>
> While the fix is trivial enough (in the end I'll need to perform several
> component release to compensate), this raises the larger issue of a API
> stability policy for major vs minor vs patch releases.  At the very
> least, I don't think its wise to remove methods from a public interface
> in a patch release.  In my opinion, removing methods from a public API
> should only happen across major releases, and even then, only after
> being formally deprecated.


-- 
Bela Ban
Lead JGroups / Clustering Team
JBoss