Club Linux Coffs Harbour

Backporting is the practice of applying improvements from recent versions of software to older versions.  Where individual software packages are concerned this is often done to add critical bug fixes to an older version of a program in a stable system, without risking the introduction of other bugs by upgrading the entire package.  

It is also common for people to backport a new version of a program in it's entirety to run on an older system.  An article on Newsforge has alerted me to a site containing backports of shiny new software for the latest stable version of Mandriva.

Opinion is divided on whether backporting new software packages is a good thing or not, as these backported packages are rarely as thoroughly tested with the other software in your system as packages from an official release, and risk destabilising your system.  Whether it's worth taking the risk depends on how impatient you are to get new software.  If you use a distribution with a long wait between releases, it may be a better option than running the unstable version of that system, but if you only have to wait a little while for the next stable release, you may be better advised to cool your heels.