This would actually have been a great cherry-pick fix because it’s one line in one file. I think others vary.
There has been process talk, including beta update smoother than v2.0.4.23-2.0.4.23_beta_2019-07-14 came out (version number confused people who thought code was more advanced than lower numbers which were actually canary releases) but I’m not sure the threshold for an urgent update was discussed.
There’s a “help wanted” sign out for a release manager (and pretty much everything), because complex release mechanics take work. Even finishing betas is hard, and we’re stuck now with code one year old due to (IMO) process where Canary keeps taking changes instead of getting very selective before Beta.
Discussion: release cycle basically says what I said as part of a larger conversation. A very long (due to expansion of scope) topic exists in Developer category if you’d really like to get into process discussion.
I think many people want more frequent Beta releases, in general, and it might avoid the backport need. Alternatively, maybe backport is the only way to split the important-and-working fixes from the unknown.