Comment 20 for bug 571286

@rodrigo - there are several strands here that interact.

* end users write apps to code in the distro. So when we offer them a release, they know they have a *fixed* basis on which to use the API's present in the distro. Anything which would break a third party user using a shipped API is something that an SRU cannot do except under very specific circumstances - such as 'only way to fix a local root exploit' or 'there is no way to use it without this fix anyway, because it depends on server XYZ which has changed its protocol'.

* Code changes are risky, SRU's are meant to be auditable and understandable; on disk format changes to a database sound (to me) to be unlikely to be easily audited and understood. I may be misunderstanding here, but I'd be expecting the pure distro folk to be hearing what I'm hearing here ;)

* It's not clear whether anyone can directly depend on your on-disk format or not - I mean, you have an API, and you have a disk format, but can anyone open up one of the couchdb's with couch itself, and query? if so, then you may have third party things you don't know about starting to use the shiny you've provided.