Excerpts from Carl (CBM)'s message of Mon Aug 02 19:06:42 -0400 2010:
I am not a Debian developer, and I agree that sending fixes upstream is good. But surely you're aware that the whole point of "Debian stable" is that it does ***not*** change to newer versions of programs after release, apart from security fixes? Debian is well known for taking the word "stable" seriously (e.g. [1]) and it's a reason people choose them.
Ryan's complaint is:
1. Distributors frequently get backported patches wrong (usually due to a lack of expertise or manpower), and
2. Distributors roll patches without telling upstream developers who would happily accept them into the mainline.
However, upstream developers are often guilty of ignoring a distribution's needs, so it goes both ways.
Cheers, Edward