API changes in minor releases

I remember that PEAR defines that API changes should only take place in major releases. Since there are packages that change the API also in minor releases this needs handling i guess. But more important there should be an API-check when releasing packages to ensure the stability of the API throughout a major release. This of course means that the package needs to be well designed/planned before hand. I just came across this, because i have a package that depends on another one, which changed the API in a minor release and it is really annoying when you have to upgrade a package only because another one, that it depends on, has changed. How are the common rules for this in PEAR and are there any plans to handle that? -- Wolfram ... opensource @ vision:produktion ... http://opensource.visionp.de ... authentication system .... http://sf.net/projects/auth