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> If the downsteam consumer has their own extra patches ontop of the
> stable branch, then it seems D is even less useful than A.

It is not - downstream (speaking for RDO) I would keep Version:
2015.1.N where N is stable patch# so that we have a common reference
point with other distros.
Our patches, if any, then come on top this, so it's clear which
patches are added by distro.

Cheers,
Alan