Why not pick a "distribution" like org.freedesktop.Platform/18.08 (i.e. pick a flatpak runtime) and support that? It runs on all desktop distributions. Updating supported flatpak runtimes is then on your leisure, not on their release cadence.
The runtimes are not locked down, anyone can publish theirs (under their domain name, ofcourse), so it depends on who publishes it.
For the freedesktop one, they have following policy[1]:
- When a new stable release release is done, the changes on that branch will only be:
- security updates
- stable releases (tested carefully); no ABI breaks / API build breaks.
- we will try to keep updating that branch as much as we can
- We release a new major release every year, only if:
- There is a ABI break
- There is a "API build" break (apps might not compile because new major releases of important packages (GCC))
- Looking at the GCC and other major project cadences, this is likely going to happen annually.
- We only maintain the current stable release and the previous one, this means:
- Stable releases get 2 years of security updates
- We maintain maximum 3 releases at any given time:
- Development
- Stable
- Old stable
