I'm not too sure that that's the case for ordinary classes - it is the case for interfaces, but this is an ordinary criteria class where adding a new method is backwards compatible, I believe. That said, the API check job will tell us in the end ;)

If you want to check your your changes for API breakage, Michael, you can read about it here: https://docs.jboss.org/author/display/RHQ/Tracking+API+Changes.