I have recently started a thread on the p5p mailing list
about the future of various sized perl distributions.
See the thread here.

http://www.mail-archive.com/perl5-porters@perl.org/msg83837.html

There I was pointed to list this as the place to discuss these issues.

While I uderstand that most of the discussion in this list was about
how to make a smaller and a minimal distribution my concern is how
make a bigger distro.

There are at least two areas where having such large perl
distirbution might be an advantage:

- beginners in Perl should not be concerned about the process
   of installing modules
- in various environments the users don't have enough power to
   install modules, or it is even more difficult than usual
   (e.g. web hosting, organizations that accept only the Perl that comes
   from the hardware vendor


In addition, as Randy W. Sims pointed out the way the Ruby ppl are 
building a Ruby Production Archive[1] (RPA)
http://rpa-base.rubyforge.org/wiki/wiki.cgi?RpaManifesto

This work on a larger perl distribution might also lead to (or
be the result of) a selection of the "better CPAN modules" to some
arbitrary meaning of "better".

I have already started to build a package and put it up
so everyone can look at what has been done so far:

http://www.szabgab.com/maxiperl/


I'd appreciate your input on this.

Gabor