When a future version of aprsc makes old configuration files incompatible, the APT or YUM upgrade will restart the aprsc process before the operator gets a chance of trying to update the configuration to be compatible.
aprsc should have a command line option to test configuration validity, quit, and report validity using return code
init script's restart method should test the old/new config, and refuse to restart process if new config does not parse
postinstall scripts should use that restart method
When a future version of aprsc makes old configuration files incompatible, the APT or YUM upgrade will restart the aprsc process before the operator gets a chance of trying to update the configuration to be compatible.