[irods/irods#8605] Document Consortium's stance on API and ABI stability (main)

[korydraughn]

Here's a screenshot of the rendered documentation.

And here's what the navigation menu looks like. Tried to remove the button to the left of the section title, but failed. Also didn't spend a lot of time on that part.

[alanking]

Looks good to me.

My only hesitation is whether this needs its own dedicated page. I'm wondering whether there's a more general space we can use or create. Maybe a slightly more general "Version Compatibility" page or something like that? It feels like it's very limited in its scope for what could go in here in the future. All that being said, I'm fine with things as they are as well.

[korydraughn]

That crossed my mind as well. If you see an alternative place to put it, let me know.

Given your recent issue about char* and const char*, I'm now starting to reconsider whether ABI stability should be a thing we maintain. It can be hard to do which is why I've tried to avoid it.

[trel]

agreed - let's hold on this for a little bit and think through what we DO want to say... as well as whether there is a more general place for it than its own page.

[korydraughn]

This PR needs to cover irods/irods#8310.

Moving forward, we need to limit changes to packing instructions to major releases. That helps in maintaining API stability.

[korydraughn]

Previous/Latest Notes:

• Minor releases maintain API compabitlity
• Patch releases strive for ABI compatibility

[korydraughn]

Updated wording and moved it to the contributing page of the developers section.

[korydraughn]

The rendered text.

[trel]

i like it.

[trel]

squash em

[korydraughn]

Squashed.

[trel]

pound it

[korydraughn]

Added pound.

Merging.