Editing Backporting (section)

==Procedures==
The process of backporting can be roughly divided into these steps:<ref name="redhat-backporting" />
# identification of the problem in the older version of the software that needs to be fixed by a backport
# finding out which (usually recent) modification of the code fixed the problem
# adapting the modification to the old code situation (the proper backporting)
# one or several levels of [[quality control]]{{snd}} testing whether the backported version maintains previous functionality as well as if it properly implements the new functionality.

Usually, multiple such modifications are bundled in a [[Patch (computing)|patch]] set.

Backports can be provided by the core [[Software developer|developer]] group of the software. Since backporting needs access to the source code of a piece of software, this is the only way that backporting is done for [[closed source software]]{{snd}} the backports will usually be incorporated in [[Binary file|binary]] [[upgrade]]s along the old version line of the software. With [[open-source software]], backports are sometimes created by [[Linux distribution|software distributors]] and later sent [[Upstream (software development)|upstream]] (that is, submitted to the core developers of the afflicted software).<ref name="fedora-upstream" />