"Development Status :: 5 - Production/Stable" is a promise no one can keep. No...
"Development Status :: 5 - Production/Stable" is a promise no one can keep. No one can say if the API is going to stay stable, that is what version pinning is for. And if you update your version number from 2.0.0 to 3.0.0 and break API, well, that's what "<3.0.0" is for. If you break compatibility every day, "==0.7.5" will always be stable.
Self-replies
Doesn't match your intuition? This word stable implies not API fixity, but a promise to have someone keep pumping out 0.0.1 fixes with security fixes, bug fixes and you can continually upgrade without fear of breaks.
Will someone be on standby to do a backwards compatible upgrade to 3.17? No one can make that promise.
No one knows the time or place or person of the last maintainer of a package.
More promises:
"Development Status :: 5 - You get a pizza party every minor release"