Comment 45 for bug 578045

Actually anyone can do the backport, and if it is tested, I guess the chance of it getting into the backports higher. There is a command to do it automatically (in package "ubuntu-dev-tools"), and in many cases just a rebuild is sufficient:

http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/oneiric/man1/backportpackage.1.html

It will upload the built packages to a PPA. I just tried backporting "onboard" from Raring to Quantal, which just required a rebuild (the binary package did not install directly because of wrong python version), before I discovered that it actually was available in a PPA.

Else I agree with you. MS Windows as a comparison hardly changes much more often than every 3-5 years and is thus a more stable target for third party software.