API version number policy

[Rafael Laboissiere]

Is there a set of well defined criteria for bumping the API version
number in Octave (api-v*)?  Is this documented somewhere ?

I am asking because I am currently reviewing the long standing requests
and bug reports for having properly SONAME'd Octave libraries [1] [2], as
well as a recently discussion in debian-policy about preventing packages
to provide shared libraries outside /usr/lib/ [3].

Before trying to see whether I can propose a patch for this, I would like
to understand what is behind the api-v* number change.

[1] http://bugs.debian.org/367165
[2] http://bugs.debian.org/510579
[3] http://lists.debian.org/debian-policy/2009/03/msg00147.html

Thanks,

-- 
Rafael