
A Few Valid Reasons to Reject a Bug Fix - yegor256a
http://www.yegor256.com/2015/06/22/valid-reasons-to-reject-bug-fix.html?2015-25
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DrScump
why isn't the #1 reason _to avoid introducing regressions_ , i.e. changing a
behavior that (even if it runs contrary to spec or documentation) existing
users/applications rely on, knowingly or unknowingly?

In such cases, fixes shouldn't be _rejected_ per se but instead be deferred
until the full impact on existing code bases can be estimated. Such a fix
should be deferred to the next major release AND the user base notified that
the change in behavior is coming (and/ ideally, give affected users a way to
check their apps for reliance on that soon-to-end behavior and/or provide a
backward-compatibility switch to retain the old behavior long enough to get
affected apps converted).

Few things alienate your existing user base more than having long-working
applications suddenly _broken_ by "fixes" whose implications were not warned
of in (at least) release notes.

