Compatibility

Compatibility

Kopia uses semantic versioning.

In order to ensure that snapshots created with Kopia will be available as the project evolves, starting with v0.3.0 release Kopia is offering the following compatibility promise:

1. Each version of Kopia will be able to read snapshots created using current and at least one previous version of the software. The previous version is to be interpreted as:

• for releases with major version == v0 (i.e. v0.x.y), previous version means previous minor version (v0.(x-1).*)

• for releases with major version == v1, previous version is the last minor release of the v0 major version.

• for releases with major version >= v2 (i.e. vx.y.z), previous version means previous major version (v(x-1)).

2. While not explicitly guaranteed, it is possible and likely that Kopia will be able to read (but not necessarily write) snapshots created with even older versions of software than explicitly guaranteed. For example, it’s likely that Kopia v0.6.0 will read snapshots created using v0.3.0, even though it’s three releases behind.

3. In order to avoid corrupting data, Kopia will refuse to mutate repositories it’s not designed to safely handle. That means, it will typically only allow reading, but not writing older versions of repository, unless explicitly documented and tested.

4. Kopia may support for writing old repository formats on a best-effort basis.

• For example Kopia v0.4.x may write using repository format created by v0.3.x in a way that v0.3.x versions will continue to understand it.

5. Each version of Kopia will offer migration mechanism to bring old readable repository format to the current format and thus enable full read-write operation.

6. Kopia will never upgrade old repository format to a new version without explicit human action.