[gumby]

EMACS was developed on ITS, a multi user timesharing operating system with no security. I developed a complex init file (in TECO of course) which was a compiled module in my home directory.

One day I changed something in an incompatible way and received complaints. Unbeknownst to me there was a community of people who linked (symlinked) directly to my init file and whose workflows were disrupted by my change.

[EdwardCoffin]

Were there any interesting consequences? Like did you consequently avoid making disrupting changes to your own init file, or did people agree to make copies instead of rely on links?