I am of the opinion, that the responsibility of maintenance and keeping things compatible, falls completely on the developer using it, when it's not version 1.0 yet. Yes, it has been in development for a long time, and it's reasonable to fear that it might not reach 1.0 for too long. At the same time, I find that many projects are afraid of breaking compatibility, which usually ends up with this half-baked solution, with things plastered on top.

In relation to that, you obviously shouldn't just break stuff all the time (though I believe you reserve the right to do so before v1.0), but developers can also be so afraid of increasing the major version, that they just never do...

https://tom.preston-werner.com/2022/05/23/major-version-numb...