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Yes, backwards compatibility can be preserved by new
classes, or by an additional constructor argument (I'd
personally prefer the latter). However, I doubt the
usefulness of such a new construct: nobody would use it
unless they are aware of the issue, and if they are aware of
the issue, they can easily solve the problem in a different way.

Circular references are a red herring here; no image will
ever exist in a circle, since image objects don't refer to
other objects.