In my specific case, I would like to backport gh-99540: Constant hash for _PyNone_Type to aid reproducibility by yonillasky · Pull Request #99541 · python/cpython · GitHub to Python 3.10.
The PR is not a bug fix, however it is pretty small, and would be useful for a project I am working on.
Python releases have five phases of development: feature, prerelease, bugfix, security, and end-of-life. Features, or other changes to behavior that are not explicitly fixing a bug, are only acceptable in the single branch that is open to feature development, main. After the first beta release, a long-lived branch is created for the prerelease version, at which point new features are no longer accepted. After final 3.x.0 release, the branch moves to bugfix maintenance, where bugs may be fixed but also have serious backwards-compatibility constraints within the major (3.x) version. After 2ish years, the branch moves to security maintenance, where only fixes for security issues may be applied. Finally, after 5 years support runs out, and the branch is replaced by a fixed tag, signifying no further development.
All this to say that 3.10 is currently in security maintenance, which means that there is no chance that this change will be backported that far even if it had very little expected impact.
Generally, it is determined which branches can accept a change before the change is even merged, and backports are (mostly) handled automatically. The change in question was not deemed eligible for bugfix backport at the time, and I do not think the opinion would be different now.
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